Sri Lankan Stories
17-12-2013The worst part about coming back from honeymoon at this time of year, apart from the whole coming back from honeymoon bit obviously, is that it is so busy.
Myself and the lady have been back for a little under two weeks now and we are nearly as busy as we were before the wedding. I thought all that free time I heard so much about was going to magically kick in once we got home. But between Christmas present shopping and family visiting we are just as busy.
I haven't had a whole lot of time.
So here is a delayed rant about our first leg of the honeymoon - our trip to Sri Lanka.
Now, I am not one for the sun holidays. It might be something to do with being akin to a vampire without the benefits of immortality and amazing brooding abilities, who knows. But thankfully the lady, while more than capable of absorbing some rays and getting a nice tan going, is not one to sit around all day on a sun holiday.
This works out nicely. Mainly because it means that when we do go on "sun holidays" it is just another way of saying we went "somewhere interesting with sun". Sri Lanka was just that.
Overall I really enjoyed our time in the country, with only one or two things (three possibly but you can probably smash two of them together) irking me.
It all began with the pair of us flying with Emirates, a first for both of us. These things are like floating castles in the sky. They are the most amazing airplanes we had ever been on and that was being in the cheap seats. Such comfort and service you would be hard pressed to find in a four star hotel back home.
When we landed in Sri Lanka, following a couple of hours in Dubai, we were greeted by our guide for the next five days.
A legend of a guide
He guided us through the busy airport and brought us outside. Now this was when we had our first experience that somewhat sullied Sri Lanka for us. Vishwa went off to get the car and came back in a matter of minutes, popping the boot before he jumped out of the car. However as the boot was opening these two guys, who wore no uniform nor badge to indicate they worked with the airport (because they didn't), picked up our bags and put them into the boot. Then started to demand a "tip" from us. One of them started pointing at a ten euro note he had, saying that was how much the "tip" was meant to be. While we had no rupees on us, nor euro, he spied that I had a twenty sterling note in my wallet and tugged that out. This I would have been miffed at, to the degree of knocking him out, had it not been for his buddy who had followed the lady practically into the car. I decided to let bastard number one keep the money, jumped into the car and forced the other tosser to get lost.
The win-win (kinda) of the story is that the twenty they had "got" was a Bank of Ireland note, only of use within Northern Ireland. As in you can't even change it for other money. So basically they had a note they couldn't use.
We still get happy at that thought.
Vishwa, fair play to him, did apologise for how that whole thing had gone down and explained to us the ways of Sri Lanka. Basically everyone everywhere expects to be tipped, no matter what they do or don't do for you. We had been forewarned about this by none other than H (of Roommate Chronicles fame) and her handsome man but didn't expect it to be so in your face upon arrival.
Luckily our guide gave us the rough guide lines to follow on who to tip and how much. Which was basically what we stuck with the entire trip there. I don't have a problem with tipping as such and generally tip when out for a meal or getting a taxi home, but it would definitely be a negative in the Sri Lanka column at just how much tipping you have to do.
Even the guy standing in the public toilets with a mop in one hand text on his phone expects a hundred rupees from you. For not even offering to wipe your arse, literally for doing nothing.
But such is the way of things.
The hotels that we stayed in during our stay were amazing. All three and four star but compared to Ireland they may as well have all been five star. From service to food to the rooms themselves, it was the height of luxury the entire time we were there. Sri Lanka was very much our "do loads of stuff" end of the honeymoon so we rarely stayed in a hotel for more than a night, checking out each morning and heading off on our tours. We did stop in one place in the middle of the week for two nights, a lovely little resort that had little villas all over the place as the rooms for guests and an amazing pool. This spot was the one that the lady did not want to leave at all. Probably because of the treatment we got on our second night there.
On our first night we went to restaurant, had a lovely meal just from the buffet, and got talking to our waiter. A gentleman by the name of Ravindra. Now Vishwa had said that waiters generally get tipped about 500 rupees for doing a good job, which isn't really a massive tip when converted back into euro. Ravindra was so good on the night that we gave him a thousand. He was delighted and even thought at one point we wanted change from it. When he thanked us a few times he asked what other parts of Sri Lanka we planned on visiting and would we be back the next night. We told him it was our honeymoon and we would be back there for one more night. Ravindra then told us to return at half seven for dinner.
The next night came and as we walked into the restaurant Ravindra greeted us and guided us out to a private table set beneath the stars and laid out for us. Complete with a menu he had gotten made up for us an a bottle of wine selected by the lady. We were then treated to a fantastic meal, with Ravindra as our personal waiter, for the entire night. At the end we tipped him a sizeable amount of rupees and went back to our room, where Ravindra had gotten some of the cleaning staff to cover the bed in rose petals.
Very rosemantic.
Give a nice tip, get an amazing meal the next day
See I don't mind tipping somebody when they do a good job, more so when the tip gets an even better job the next time. Anyway...
We did a lot of stuff in Sri Lanka. Visited some amazing Buddhist temples and really remote sites that were just breath taking to see. We even got to ride around on an elephant.
Urge to crush all, rising
An interesting way to travel. Beats sitting in rush hour traffic
In another rant I talked about the Great Tea Conspiracy and my ever growing desire to kill the Tuc Tuc drivers of Sri Lanka, so I won't go over those again here.
Not enough good things can be said about our guide Vishwa though. He made navigating the whole madness of the country so much easier. Steering us clear of out and out scams. Showing us the better places to buy things (which actually worked out cheaper than the stores we were told to go to). He even had a few little gems off the beaten track to brings us to which were well worth the visit. Every trip to Sri Lanka should include him, because you really get looked after and it's nice having a local who is on the side of the tourist.
But I will say that if you ever were inclined to visit this fantastic country it would be definitely something I recommend doing, just bear in mind that the tipping culture is something to get used to. Plus be wary upon arrival for the guys just looking to rip tourists off.
Then again when you get to see a sunset like this you're not going to mind.
You couldn't paint this if you tried.
Blue_jester