One one things

I just handed in my last project for work. It feels odd, the end of my first real job. I’ll have to show up in office the next two days as well and I hope boss doesn’t decide that he wants some ammendments made to my paper. But the feeling is bittersweet, I’ll miss work and the friends i’ve made, I won’t miss having to wake up at 7.30am and I won’t miss deadline pressure. Planning on doing lots of travelling between the end of August and when I leave the country in September. Had a bit of a taste of what to expect over the weekend, spent 3 days running around the country from Kithulgala to Unawatuna.

On Thursday night around 1am a friend calls me up and asks if i’m doing anything on Friday, I said that I have work, but he convinced me that white water rafting is a lot more fun than working on a Friday, and of course he was right. So off I went, 6am, put some petrol in the car and picked up a couple of the fellows and we were on our way. It was to be my first time driving out of town, my parents are forever worried about this and that so whenever I go with them I don’t get to drive. But I thoroughly enjoyed it, the thrill of overtaking a private bus just in time to get back into lane before crashing into one coming from the other side, the cool mountain air and some top music and conversation to keep us going. It was my second time rafting and the first time was good fun. It isn’t anywhere near as dangerous as one expects it to be, afterall Kithulgala rapids are only level 3. Nonetheless you get a solid adrenaline buzz, bruised hands and a good old fashion ducking. The instructor asked us if we want to topple the boat in one of the rapids, and we thought yeah, more to remember. Unfortunately it didn’t fully topple, the boat just crunched up like an egg shell and we got thrown all over but only one of us actually fell out. A nice part was getting into the water to swim through one of the smaller rapids. It’s actually not swimming at all but lying down and being dragged and hoping like mad not to hit a rock. The ride is topped off by a relaxing dip in the Kelani river, helmets and life jackets off, just floating around in gay abandon. Oh and a solid lunch afterwards!

The only hitch was a bit of cop trouble. I don’t know what’s gotten into them the last few months but they’ve taken corruption to new levels. My friend was driving wearing a skinny and the cop threatned to fine him for “Shareeraya Pradarshanaya kireema”. How idiotic is that? One of my friends suggested the surge in corruption is bc the fines have been increased ppl are willing to bribe higher amounts. Those days the fine was something like 150 bucks and nobody will be willing to pay a cop 1000 bucks to avoid such a small fine. But it’s getting ridiculous now, cops ask for money even without a rule being broken. Can’t stand our coppers, almost as bad as VISA officers!

Got back home safely on Friday evening but with a splitting headache bc I was driving facing the sun. Slept early and woke up at 6 the next morning to get to Maradana station to go to Galle. A friend of mine had got a bungalow for the weekend so we tagged along. Took the train which got delayed by an hour bc they couldn’t find a guard who was on duty at the time! Sigh..only in Sri Lanka! The best part of the Galle trip was unawatuna. I hadn’t had a proper sea bath since Patalangala bungalow in Yala last December. I’ve never stayed in Unawatuna, it’s a fantastic place. The beach is lovely and was relatively empty, specially on Sunday morning when it was just us lot. The water is just calm enough to enjoy a swim without it being too boring, and you can venture out fairly deep into the ocean without it getting too strong. They were having a BBQ on the beach on Saturday night and we were so so tempted to go, but unfortunately the bungalow ppl had already prepared dinner for us. That evening I met for the first time in my life a genuinely nice politician. You’d expect politicians to be in your face, crude, pompous and condescending, but this guy was just the opposite. Absolutely humble and down the earth, soft spoken and accomodating. It was a nice, refreshing experience. Hehe but he did sort of admit to taking part in the hora chanda business.

We came home on Sunday evening, took an intercity bus more out of compulsion than choice. The only train available had just 3rd class. I still don’t know why we just didn’t drive to Galle in the first place! The bus wasn’t all bad though, it was cramped and hot and had to keep the bag on my lap, but we got home in 2.5 hours so thats got to count for something.

Having got a taste of this we made tentative arrangements to do a road trip from Colombo to Amparai next week to meet our friend who’s working at the Hospital there. Stopping over at unawatuna, hiks, yala and arugam bay. It sounds like a plan!