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Colombo, Sri Lanka

Colombo is only a little over 3.5 hours flight from Kuala Lumpur, so why not? The first thing I noticed in the airport is their duty free has the standard stuff like alcohol and chocolate, but they also sell a full range of appliances like washers, dryers, refrigerators and TVs. I’ve never seen that before. Maybe there is a very high duty on those items.

We took a taxi to our Airbnb, although we should have taken an Uber. Lots of people were pushing taxis on us at the airport and I think we ended up overpaying, although it was still reasonable from my perspective, $20 for a 1 hour drive. Uber is great when traveling because 1 – you don’t need any local money, 2 – you don’t need to communicate with the driver, you set your destination in the app, the the Uber GPS tells the driver how to get there, 3 – no negotiation of price or tips.

Yanmei outside our Airbnb after we did a bit of grocery shopping.

The next morning Yanmei wanted to go to Pettah Market, so we ordered an Uber. In one of the few letdowns I’ve had with Uber, the driver dropped us off early because the traffic was so bad, which was probably true we could walk as fast as the car. The market was only a few blocks away but we became lost. I thought we were in Pettah market because there were hundreds of stalls selling various goods from shoes to cellphones. Yanmei kept asking me where the fruits and veggies were. Finally she asked a local and we found out the produce market is called Manning market and was nearby.

Soon we found the correct market.

After that we went to the train station to get tickets and then to the National museum. We saw a lot of school children visiting the museum. I saw some sketching images of the items on display. I remember doing that when I was in high school, having to draw something on a field trip for art class, haha. Anyway it became a recurring theme in Colombo, seeing students everywhere, which is a pretty big contrast from our other destinations so far. The fact that our Airbnb is near 3 schools probably contributed to it.

Sorry for the vertical video.

We headed home and then went out later to see the sunset on the beach, although we dilly dallied too much and missed most of it.

The next day Yanmei was tired, so I headed out on my own. First I went to Gangaramaya Temple, which is a relatively new temple (12 years old I think) which has a relic of Buddha’s hair.

Remove shoes to enter.

A lock of Buddha’s hair on the gold pedestal. It was a strange temple though. It felt like it may have previously been the residence of a hoarder that was tidied up an made into a temple. I’m not trying to be disrespectful, but it was full of what I would call junk, much of it with no religious significance. At first I thought it was donations, but then I found out how new the temple is and most of the stuff looks older than it.

Anyway after that it was a short walk to Seema Malaka which is another Buddhist temple on a island in a small lake inside the city.

After that I headed towards Independence Square. Along the way I passed Nelum Pokuna Mahinda Rajapaksa Theatre, with some more students on a field trip.

Independence Square.

In the distance you can see more kids 😀.

On the way back I saw some guys playing cricket.

I wish I’d kept clicking the camera because right after this a fielder dove in from the left and stopped the ball from crossing the rope, which would have been 4 points for the batter.

The final stretch of the walk home. Unfortunately the video isn’t as stable as I’d like, I just clipped the camera to my shirt.

David

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Cultural Shock and loves of Sri Lanka

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

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Kuala Lumpur 2

On Chinese New Year we moved to a different apartment in KL, but other than that just rested. Maybe we’re getting too old or the heat is too draining, but we were both pretty tired, and a lot of stuff was closed anyway for the holiday. We’d considered going to Penang (island about 4 hours drive north of KL) for a few days, since it is supposed to have some of the best food in Malaysia, but we decided we don’t have the energy this time.

The next day we had a bit more energy. I woke up early and go a picture of dawn over Kuala Lumpur.

We took the MRT to Batu Caves.

You can see the steps which lead up and into the caves in the mountain. I decided not to go up. It is a Buddhist temple and there were signs saying “no shoes”, but the majority of tourists were ignoring them, which disgusted me. I didn’t want to go up the steps barefoot so I just didn’t go. Yanmei said she’d seen a hundred temples so she wasn’t interested either.

Nearby there was another cave that I went into. The cave was real, but I assume all the decorations were made for tourists rather than being a historical site. It was interesting enough anyway.

After that we headed to the Central Market.

I guess this would be considered a dry market since it was full of small shops selling all kinds of durable products, rather than meat and produce.

This shop was interesting to me, if you zoo. In on the sign to the right, not only do they accept bitcoin, they also accept ethereum. This is the first time I’ve ever seen somewhere that accepts ethereum. Ethereum is another crypto currency that competes with bitcoin.

I forgot the old weather warning, “red sky in the morning, sailors take warning” and there was a torrential downpour as we left the Central Market. Fortunately our new apartment is very close to the MRT station so we avoided most of the soaking.

Before coming to Kuala Lumpur I imagined it would be one of the most exotic cities to visit. It is interesting, no doubt, but not very exotic feeling. Most of the shop signs and billboards are in English, they have a modern transit system, I feel I could drive here since people follow the rules of the road at least to the same extent as they do in the US, and you don’t have to go far between seeing Starbucks, McDonalds or 7-Elevens.

David