Sri Lanka- Reunions, Wedding and more

Suren and Thisanthi Wedding
Originally uploaded by ying22.

Regrettably, my close to 2 weeks of travelling has come to an end when my travel buddy Gokce Alacadagli left for stlm last nite. We covered Sri Lanka, Kuala Lumpur(Msia) and Singapore together :)... His first trip to Asia, and his tagline as "CHEAP"..everything is cheap i know compared to stockholm ha..boy you are going to have withdrawal symptons back in Stlm.:)

Anyways we spent 5 days in Mount Lavinia, 15mins out of Colombo, Sri Lanka where we stayed in a hotel facing the beach AND its just a wall away from the RAILWAY TRAINS!So yes every few hrs, we hear a roaring train zoom past plus the tempting sea cant be swam coz the current is too strong.Yeah...see no touch....But its ok, lazing by the pool, gave me my tan which left me peeling like a snake...

AND the focus of our trip is for Suren's wedding and meeting up with Ruki, our dear friends that we met from our traineeship time in Stockholm. What can i say? We went to Suren's house, had the pre-wedding feast with the rest of his 40 plus close relatives and friends, sat in his new 2nd hand car imported from Singapore ( apparently its as ex in Sri Lanka to get a brand new car as in Sipo, its crazy!!), witnessed the traditional ceremony of his wedding with Thisanthi at Mount Lavinia Hotel, this british colonial styled hotel (apparently most couples get married here, ruki's wedding in aug will be held here as well), very nice.



4 of Us again
Originally uploaded by ying22.

Suren and Thisanthi make a beautiful couple, its so cool that i finally meet her, Suren's "My Girl" as he so affectionally calls her when we were in Stockholm...sighhhh..just gets u to such a lovey dovey mode and thinking, "when would my turn come? " when u see 2 happy pple so in love and finally coming together and with the committement for life, putting up with ALL the little annoyances of that person that would drive you crazy...(on that note,think i will take a few more years before getting used to this idea)..

It was a pretty chill trip actually,as i had no expectations before i touched down at the airport, other than knowing simple trivia that SL boasts the production of Ceylon Tea under the internationally known Dilmah brand,has 70 different breeds of bananas, majority of the population are Buddhist and they are nice friendly smiley pple. Hot humid weather greeted us, along with very gd english speaking sri lankans, ( 80% literacy rate in this cty, and most are proficient in english), what surprised me that the radio stations are in english, kinda see the uncanny resemblence with Singapore, where english, not the mother tongue, is spouted widely too mainly for economic reasons. Throughout Colombo, you will find interesting old architectures of fine churches, schs,colonial buildings,in the midst of shophouses,as SL was colonised by the Dutch, Portuguese and British each for 150 yrs separately.

One major shocker for me is the "interesting" driving styles in this country, its simply terrifying that i cant keep my eyes on the road for long else i get too stressed up...and i thought i have seen worst in some parts of greece..in short, as described by gokce this is called jungle driving...there are no rules and laws, motorcycles, 3 wheelers (more popularly known as tuk-tuk in Thailand), cars invade the roads. An example I give you: When Ruki was driving us to another city,Kandy, these 2 tuk tuk hog the main road (which happens to be 1 lane) and ruki just swerved to the another lane with traffic coming in the opp direction just to cut them, its normal. No horning, as it just doesnt work on the fellow motorists. But what amazes me is also the drivers instinct that each motorist possess in them, however dangerous and unpredictable the moves each makes,there is no accident though its so easy to make one, its like an unwritten mutual understanding of each other.



Kelaniya Temple
Originally uploaded by ying22.

And everyone SMILES here, its reminds me of Thailand too which brands itself as the Land of Smiles, got us thinking maybe its the strong influence of Buddhism in these 2 ctys, that brings in a kind of peace and calm that allows you to project a smile all the time???? And yah, another interesting thing for me is to see many non chinese aka Sri Lankans in this case to be at the buddhist temples, yes i know that Buddha was an Indian Prince orginally, but all my life i only saw Chinese looking pple at temples, so this was another new experience for me :) N interestingly enough in different ctys there are different versions of the Buddha statues, accordingly to June (who is thai) if you look closely at the expressions, the eyes of the buddha statues seem to be bigger at temples in the india sub continent.

Other needs getting used to was the daily spicy diet: for bfast, some spicy buns, lunch: spicy veg and meat, and so on..i now understood what my friend meant that even instant noodles became a delicacy for her when she was backpacking in India for a few weeks.



Elephants taking a shower at the Elephant Orphange
Originally uploaded by ying22.

To have a glimpse of the lifestyle that my friends lead in Sri Lanka, gets me one step closer in fully understanding the comments that they made in Sweden back then, now reflecting, and how "interesting" and in a different way that their reintegration went(as they were back in SL 6 mths ago). Suren and Ruki...all the best with your lives and your loved ones, may our paths cross again soon:))