Some last observations of Sri Lankan life

A Buddha watches over the driver as he negotiates hazards

Life in Sri Lanka is very different in many ways from ours in the U.K., and yet there are legacies of colonial rule, manners and attitudes that are still quintessentially British. Not the least of these is tea drinking which is unsurprisingly a national obsession. With tea plantations all around, the industry that sits behind a global product is huge, yet it begins with women tea pickers, filling bags with 20kg of leaves on a daily basis in order to earn their crust.

Buddha is everywhere, with around 70% of the country being Buddhist and then smatterings of Hindu, Christian and Muslim. His image adorns hillsides, is in wayside shrines, dominates huge temples and features in people’s homes and workplace. The impact of this religion is to make the population generally gentle, polite and kind, with much old fashioned courtesy. The regular catch-all greeting of ‘Ayubowan’ - pronounced ‘Are you bo un’ means may you live long.

Sri Lankans are not particularly snappy dressers - the climate militates against anything heavy. So for men, light trousers and an open necked shirt is the order of the day while women may dress in light dresses or, if they are high class, then a sari with a frill. Teachers wear them too and one is able to understand a lady’s background from the way she dresses.

Children’s school uniforms are provided by China and have a levelling effect for the classroom. Incidentally, school starts at 07:30 and ends at  13:30.

Food includes any number of regional specialities, many of the. With fish. Tuna is regularly on the menu as are prawns of various shapes and sizes. Mango, watermelon and papaya proliferate, along with coconut, but there are fewer oranges or lemons. Limes are used in drinks. A popular version of tea drinking is called Yara or Yard tea. This is a milky concoction, created by pouring hot milk and tea from one vessel to another over a great height. Typically, tea is served with Jaggery, a raw and unrefined lump of sugar that has a treacly honeyed flavour to it. You can dip it in your drink, dissolve it or bite lumps of it as you choose.

Animals form a big part of Sri Lankans’ everyday life. Cattle, dogs and monkeys abound, sometimes domesticated but more often wild. There are about 7000 elephants in the country and they can disrupt people’s lives and livelihoods if they enter into areas dominated by humans. Occasionally one finds cats, lizards, water buffalo and monitor lizards, the last of which can grow huge and wander around the streets. And mosquitoes - ever present and annoying, particularly out in the country. Although they don’t carry malaria, they are nonetheless. Nuisance and can leave infected bites when they hit you.

In the towns and villages there are so many partly finished buildings, frequently with rebar sticking out of pillars. Construction is often with lots of corrugated iron or asbestos sheeting and many buildings look very temporary, featuring unfinished exteriors with minimal decoration. Walkways are frequently poor and dangerous with drainage channels crossing them and paths are often muddy with broken stones. The drains flow in front of the buildings, and duckboards, gratings or flag stones cover them. There are massive contrasts between tin shacks and beautiful villas set on hillsides.

Plumbing, plugs and public loos: our first sight was at the airport, where the toilets featured grimy urinals with mouldy tiles and caked handbasins. Nothing worked. Others I have experienced have had flush knobs that would spray water over the unwary, washbasins with no plug at all or worse still, handbasins that have a plug but silently drain as you wash or shave. One hotel had one that did that but when you pull open the plug it didn’t drain and the plug bobbed around on the surface as if laughing at you. I realise that this is not unique to Sri Lanka. During our time in hotels we have called maintenance in twice for the drains and probably should have five times.

And finally, it’s amusing to see the blatant ripping off of brands. Burger Hut. Googles trainers, Schweppes-alike tonic and soft drinks all seem to go unchecked. Perhaps the big brands don’t care?

And so, here we are at Bandaranaike Airport in Colombo, waiting to board the first of two flights home. It’s been a rollercoaster ride in a wonderful country. Join us when we set off on our next adventure!