About two weeks before I was going to travelling, I decided to go out one night with friends and ended up at a rave, cut a long story short I got talking to a lad called Ste while in conversation I mentioned I was going travelling and that my first destination was Sri Lanka. He was amazed because he had been quite a few times and had fell in love with the place, he was showing me photos, they were beautiful. He took photos of the local children playing, some without shoes but they was so happy. Just by chance he mentioned he might be going back for work so we swapped numbers and kept in touch. Just a week before I was going, Ste sent me a message informing me that he will be staying in Sri Lanka the same time I will be there and that he would meet up with me a couple of days after I arrive to give me some tips and to have a catch up so I was over the moon.
In relation to the last post, we were currently in mount Lavinia, we had only planned on staying two nights but because of the heat and jet lag we ended up staying longer than normal just to get used the lifestyle we was about to start for the first month. On this day we decided to take a trip up to the main road to see what was around the area, the main road was a couple of miles long called "Galle road" which is one of the main routes for public transport and also shops, restaurants and quite a few advertisements. (see photo)
We ended up stopping off for some food ^^ (see photo) at a place called "Sukiya food" it was a very local restaurant with many locals eating there, the restaurant just about had a English menu , we just had to point and hope for the best , the man who worked there about about 50 he could talk some English and told us his name was Neil and started calling us son and daughter and was making some jokes asking if we was married (haha) we just said yes. Sukiya foods was a standard rice and curry shop. I didn't quite fancy curry as it was midday and the heat was ridiculously hot. I just asked for egg fried rice after about 2 minutes of explaining what we wanted they started to prepare the food from fresh in a huge pan it smelt gorgeous, we just sat chatting and taking in our surroundings because it was just so different to anything I have ever seen before, I felt really chilled and comfortable. The food was finally ready he brought over our meals and drinks, with the language barrier, they had made me rice with a fried egg on top (hahahahaha) and I am so fussy when it comes to eggs, I cannot eat them boiled or fried so I had a five minute bitch fit over this egg in the end I just took it off and Chris ate it, it wasn't worth explaining to them what I really wanted but it was so funny to see, the food was so tasty and really cheap. In total we had two meals each and four drinks which was (350 rupees) =£3.79, so cheap yet so tasty, it honestly makes you think how much we get ripped off, a meal in a place like Yates or weather spoons in the UK would cost roughly £5.00 plus.. (Is it made fresh ? We will never know) yet I paid buttons for fresh food cooked in front of me.
Meanwhile I received a text message from Ste saying he would meet us at about 4.00 pm, so we went on a little walk further up "Galle Road" and stumbled across a pub/restaurant called the Lion Pub and it was actually featured in the Sri Lanka Lonely Planet guide book as a must see.
(See photos)
(Lion pub)
So we let Ste know where the lion pub was, we had some time to spare so we just nipped back to our hotel and freshened up because it was so hot. When it was nearly time for us to meet Ste we headed up towards the pub Ste had already already arrived so me and Chris was just chatting away and walked right past him. We never even noticed him until he shouted us ,it was so nice to see such a friendly face after 3 days of just me and Chris being in this foreign place because we had a huge culture shock. We was so happy having such a good time, we sat indoors at first and laughed about how we all met and the fact that we are now sitting in Sri Lanka having drinks and living the life, shortly after we headed downstairs, it looked like a tropical beer garden, with ponds and trees it was lovely, there was groups of locals all sitting around singing and playing instruments it was great to see this as it was so different and cultural :)!
We had a laugh and enjoyed some some beers, unfortunately Ste had to leave at a certain time so we had to cram everything in so quick. I remember the conversation going from talking about the party we met at to would you eat a human if you had to ??? Would it taste like pork or chicken? Bit random but it was funny at the time. My answer was NO and of course Chris was eyeing me up imaging my legs being juicy chicken thighs.
As you can see from the photos we was not bothered at all by the locals, the Sri Lankans are gernally lovely, honest people they just left us to it , occasionally they would look over , cause I think it was as weird for them as it was for us . Ste was due to leave and he demanded that we must have our tea here because we needed a "good scran" before we embarked on our 6 months of travel. So he demanded he was going to pay for our meals and told us we could order what ever we wanted which was so nice. I think we looked like we needed a good meal and then off he went to the airport.
(Me)
(Chris)
Until next time,
"All journeys have secret destinations of which the traveller is unaware"
-Martin Buber
"All journeys have secret destinations of which the traveller is unaware"
-Martin Buber
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