Feb 21, 2018, Wednesday, Colombo, Sri Lanka
Yesterday is our first day looking around Colombo, the capital city of Sri Lanka. In the morning, we went to the Pettah Market. It was crowded. A lot bananas and many kinds of veggies, size are small. I guess they are natural, which means without hormones. They are very fresh too compared to the veggies in the supermarket we went to yesterday. Some friendly people even gave me free 2 carrots and a bunch of curry leaves. They are actually only earn $50-100 per month. I felt guilty now about getting their free vegetables. (I searched online today about their average salary).
Then we went to the Fort Railway station. It is pretty small. We bought 2 tickets to Kandy only costs 1000 rupees for first class. I asked about second class, it was 290×2=580rs, it is like half of the money and I wanted to buy second class. But David stopped me assertively and told the ticket officer, “first class!” Then he told me it’s only 2 dollars difference, why suffer fighting for the seats?! $1 = 150 rupees.
After buying the tickets, we were discussing about where to go next standing in front of the railway station. A tuktuk driver standing close and watching us and asked where we would go. He charged 400rs for a ride to the National Museum., which is only 10 minutes. I tried to bargain down to 300rs, but David accepted it. Later we realized it probably only worth 100rs at most 200rs. This kind of driver who target only to foreigners are bad and charged too much. The 2 hours train only costs 500, but 10 minutes tuktuk charges as same as 2 hours train, how ridiculous it is. So we decided only use Uber then as “the tuktuk drivers rips you off”, just like our host told us. After visiting the National Museum, we went back to Airbnb home.
In the evening, we walked to the beach nearby. At the beginning, we were really enjoyed it. I can see the small fruit and veggie shops, what the houses are like and their living condition, and walking along the river was cooler. However, after we walked to the main road, we could not cross the street as there was so much chaos on the street, especially so many tuktuk drivers do not care about pedestrians at all. They created a lot noise, heat, traffic, and bad air to the Main Street. I told David, “ if the government is smart, they should get rid of all the tuktuks as they create a lot of bad air, noise and the traffic. If they change all the tuktuks to electric, the air quality will be much better”…We met a few dogs on our way, I was scared and David protected me. One of the cultural shocks of Sri Lanka is dogs no leash but they are nice and never bother us.
The sunset was beautiful and the breeze was nice. We also saw an amazing scene of many people holding the door of train but we could not take the picture as the train went fast. The only regret is so much garbage was on the beach.
After seeing the sunset, we walked to a local restaurant. When passing a KFC, I decided to use the bathroom for free. Later, when I came out, David asked me how it was. I told him when I saw the toilet appear, my tears almost came out , then I found the water is warm. I felt super satisfied and told David it was a fantastic restroom. “Remember when you were in New Zealand, there was toilet paper, warm water, but you complained about no paper seat cover? Why do you appreciate a bathroom like this so much!?” David teased me. “I lowered the bar!” After experiencing no toilet paper in a Malaysian bathroom, I did not drink much water and got headache later that day because I didn’t want to use the public toilets.
Yanmei
