..was the feeling that hit us on the morning of our last day in SL. No more of the ready-made breakfast to greet us on the table, no more of getting ready with a song on the lips, no more of packing bags with ready-to-eat food and camera and no more of crashing down to sleep with a weary but fulfilled feeling. Vacation does more harm than good in some ways. But who cares??? I am already ready for the next ;-)
We hounded a few shops the previous evening in the greed to grab some smart outfits but I was quite disappointed. The ones that fitted my taste were not exactly worth the tag price. I might as well buy the stuff here. It wasn't all that exclusive too. We were probably looking for the right things at the wrong place too. However it didn't matter. We got some books and toys for R in the end.
Pictures from the previous evening:
We took a tuk-tuk the next day to the national museum. Chatting with the local people in a foreign place gives you the true feel of the place. This guy could speak broken English and was most happy to chat with us. He (read an average Sri Lankan) loved Bollywood films and music. An enthusiastic "oh yes Hindi movies! SRK, Suniel Shetty, Akshay Kumar!" was the first response to our question. Well..anyway..
I mentioned earlier that SL is a cricket crazed nation. The notion rubbed in further while talking to this young chap. He spoke passionately about his favourite SL cricketers and even had the IPL song as his mobile ring tone. He persuaded us to book him for the return journey to the hotel, offering to wait for us till we finished with our museum tour, lunch and a little shopping if time permitted. We were already aware of the average tariff for the round trip. He was asking for a little more and good-naturedly chided us when we haggled a bit.( sigh! some things are so eerily familiar) The only difference being, it was a few hundreds there while it could be a few tens here. Money sure has even lesser value there.
R was least cooperative during the museum tour. Actually, I really didn't expect him to quietly tag along with us while we appreciated ancient history. So, we took turns (rather I let the husband do a more detailed tour while I handled R in the lawn outside) in entertaining R. We then went to House of Fashion, a multi-storey shopping store to try our last chance at clothes-shopping. It was a Friday yet it looked as though the entire Colombo was there. Humongous crowd thronging every section equally, the place so maddening that we made a quick retreat and decided to have lunch instead. We went to an Indian restaurant, had a south Indian fare that had more spice than taste and returned to our hotel where our driver was waiting to take us to the airport. We had our first experience that day of the SL traffic with roads chock-a-block with vehicles. Still, none of the incessant honking that you'd find here in a similar scenario.
We came to SL in wake of the unpleasant incident of our blessed government voting against our sole friendly neighbour. Yet, everywhere we went, we found that India and people from India commanded respect and warmth from people there.
Happy and satisfied is how I would I felt as we bade farewell to Sri Lanka. Like someone remarked at the turtle farm- 'India, Sri Lanka- same country, same colour' :-) While it is true in some ways, I'd definitely like to visit this place again in future when I hope the country would've made much economic progress and yet retained all the good aspects that we got to see and experience. Here's wishing our neighbour the very best!
We hounded a few shops the previous evening in the greed to grab some smart outfits but I was quite disappointed. The ones that fitted my taste were not exactly worth the tag price. I might as well buy the stuff here. It wasn't all that exclusive too. We were probably looking for the right things at the wrong place too. However it didn't matter. We got some books and toys for R in the end.
Pictures from the previous evening:
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| The twin tower-world trade centre |
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| The White House |
We took a tuk-tuk the next day to the national museum. Chatting with the local people in a foreign place gives you the true feel of the place. This guy could speak broken English and was most happy to chat with us. He (read an average Sri Lankan) loved Bollywood films and music. An enthusiastic "oh yes Hindi movies! SRK, Suniel Shetty, Akshay Kumar!" was the first response to our question. Well..anyway..
I mentioned earlier that SL is a cricket crazed nation. The notion rubbed in further while talking to this young chap. He spoke passionately about his favourite SL cricketers and even had the IPL song as his mobile ring tone. He persuaded us to book him for the return journey to the hotel, offering to wait for us till we finished with our museum tour, lunch and a little shopping if time permitted. We were already aware of the average tariff for the round trip. He was asking for a little more and good-naturedly chided us when we haggled a bit.( sigh! some things are so eerily familiar) The only difference being, it was a few hundreds there while it could be a few tens here. Money sure has even lesser value there.
 |
| The national museum |
R was least cooperative during the museum tour. Actually, I really didn't expect him to quietly tag along with us while we appreciated ancient history. So, we took turns (rather I let the husband do a more detailed tour while I handled R in the lawn outside) in entertaining R. We then went to House of Fashion, a multi-storey shopping store to try our last chance at clothes-shopping. It was a Friday yet it looked as though the entire Colombo was there. Humongous crowd thronging every section equally, the place so maddening that we made a quick retreat and decided to have lunch instead. We went to an Indian restaurant, had a south Indian fare that had more spice than taste and returned to our hotel where our driver was waiting to take us to the airport. We had our first experience that day of the SL traffic with roads chock-a-block with vehicles. Still, none of the incessant honking that you'd find here in a similar scenario.
We came to SL in wake of the unpleasant incident of our blessed government voting against our sole friendly neighbour. Yet, everywhere we went, we found that India and people from India commanded respect and warmth from people there.
Happy and satisfied is how I would I felt as we bade farewell to Sri Lanka. Like someone remarked at the turtle farm- 'India, Sri Lanka- same country, same colour' :-) While it is true in some ways, I'd definitely like to visit this place again in future when I hope the country would've made much economic progress and yet retained all the good aspects that we got to see and experience. Here's wishing our neighbour the very best!
