Saturday, 15 March 2014
Thursday, 13 March 2014
Tuesday, 11 March 2014
Sunday, 9 March 2014
The wilder side of Sri Lanka
Top left, under the logo reads:
Celebrating the wilder side of Sri Lanka
Attend and help select the "King and Queen" and meet the "loyal human guardians" that are pimping them.
Friday, 7 March 2014
Golden swans and fug
As our time here draws short we have a final flurry of guests arriving with all the accompanying bookings to make. This is often a far from straightforward affair here.
My morning should stand as an example of that.
One hotel we shall stay at has a well turned out website and is supposedly very good. But to book a night there you have to pay a 50% deposit. That is not as simple as it sounds as you cannot do it online or over the phone. The hotel is located north-west of the centre of the island, 200 km from Colombo but they have an office in Colombo at which I can pay my deposit.
So I called the office to check they were open, gathered the cash and put it into a waxy yellow envelope and hopped into a tuk tuk.
My bemusement had begun with the address, which located the office within a restaurant. The tuk tuk driver knew it and we swerved through the morning traffic with a little more dash and daring than I can for. (My most regular tuk tuk being out of action as a wheel fell off it.) We pulled into an empty, spacious courtyard. The larger of two buildings faced onto this and I ascended five or six stairs to the main doors, the facade overhung with a rather ridiculous outdoor cut-glass chandelier. This was clearly the restaurant's entrance and I wasn't at all sure that the hotel office would be inside here but I figured I could at least ask someone.
There was no-one at the door (where normally any place of this nature would employ a doorman or doormen) but it was early (for a restaurant) so this was no surprise. I pushed open the doors and was struck firstly by a heavy waft of stale food and trapped, flatulent air. The plastered textured wall was punched in at chest height, making a rugby ball sized indentation.
A number of golden swans encrusted in cut glass littered the dimly lit room, circling a large circular table with a butterscotch cloth and maroon chairs.
'Hello' I called out, my voice small and swallowed up by the room's meringue walls and thick air. No reply. The swans look at me. I wonder through to an adjoining room with a bar to my right and a blinding view ahead out onto the lake, mostly obscured and accentuated by heavy drapes. I feel myself drawn to the sunshine and greenish blue of the lake and the promise of fresh air. Behind the bar is a diminutive moustachioed barman dressed in an ill-fitting white suit, polishing glasses. The bar comes up to his chest.
'Hello. I am looking for the offices of Heritage Hotel.'
'Sir?'
'Heritage Hotel. I think they have an office here.'
He frowns.
'A hotel. Offices for a hotel?' I offer. Normally English will get me by but I start to think I ought to be speaking another language.
Someone comes into the room behind me and the barman gestures to them with relief.
I address the young man, 'Hello. Do you know where the offices of Heritage Hotel are?'
From behind me, before the man can reply, the barman says, 'Ah! Heritage! Heritage. Yes, I'll take you.' He scuttles out from behind the bar and gestures towards the young man, irritably brushing him out of the way with the gesture as if commanding oversized invisible puppet hands.
We go back into the earwax coloured room and head towards an incongruous metal framed glass partitioning wall in one corner of the room. A door is set into it and two blue lights glow through the frosted glass.
'Heritage.' the barman assures me, pointing and turns to return to the bar. I knock and enter the room with no great certainty.
It is a small room filled with fours large desks fitted cunningly into it in such a way as to leave only an odd, zig zag passage across the room. Sat at two of the desks are two well turned out young men who greet me warmly.
'You are Mr. Robert!' I am assured.
'No, I am Mr. Duncan.' I counter.
'Ah, yes!' his zeal undiminished.
The only sign that tells me I am at the right location is a black and white A4 print out of the hotel's logo, taped high on the wall near some hole that presumably once housed some air conditioning unit.
We confirm my details and I count out the notes onto the table. One of the men puts the wad of cash under his elbow and begins typing on his computer.
His colleagues initiates the default conversation:
'What country are you from sir?'
'England.'
Big smile, good teeth, 'Good.'
'How long are you visiting here?'
'We are living here. We've been here about 10 months. My wife is working here.'
'And your wife's country England?'
'Finland.' He looks unconvinced. 'Northern Europe.' Still unconvinced he tries a small smile and returns his gaze to his work on the computer between us.
I sit and reflect if I really wanted to deposit a large sum of money in such a place. The man with the paperweight elbow is still typing. I enquire gently if the process will take very long, not presuming that it should be simple though unable to see how it could be protracted.
'Oh no sir. I am just preparing your receipt.'
Another few minutes pass I get my receipt printed, tucked into an envelope and folded into a brochure (the first such sign of any corporate branding). I shake hands with the men and leave the cold blue light, back into the tallow room, cutting through the fug, past the swans, the staved in wall and out into the bright light of the white-walled courtyard where the green tuk tuk sits waiting like a cheerful beetle.
My morning should stand as an example of that.
One hotel we shall stay at has a well turned out website and is supposedly very good. But to book a night there you have to pay a 50% deposit. That is not as simple as it sounds as you cannot do it online or over the phone. The hotel is located north-west of the centre of the island, 200 km from Colombo but they have an office in Colombo at which I can pay my deposit.
So I called the office to check they were open, gathered the cash and put it into a waxy yellow envelope and hopped into a tuk tuk.
My bemusement had begun with the address, which located the office within a restaurant. The tuk tuk driver knew it and we swerved through the morning traffic with a little more dash and daring than I can for. (My most regular tuk tuk being out of action as a wheel fell off it.) We pulled into an empty, spacious courtyard. The larger of two buildings faced onto this and I ascended five or six stairs to the main doors, the facade overhung with a rather ridiculous outdoor cut-glass chandelier. This was clearly the restaurant's entrance and I wasn't at all sure that the hotel office would be inside here but I figured I could at least ask someone.
There was no-one at the door (where normally any place of this nature would employ a doorman or doormen) but it was early (for a restaurant) so this was no surprise. I pushed open the doors and was struck firstly by a heavy waft of stale food and trapped, flatulent air. The plastered textured wall was punched in at chest height, making a rugby ball sized indentation.
A number of golden swans encrusted in cut glass littered the dimly lit room, circling a large circular table with a butterscotch cloth and maroon chairs.
'Hello' I called out, my voice small and swallowed up by the room's meringue walls and thick air. No reply. The swans look at me. I wonder through to an adjoining room with a bar to my right and a blinding view ahead out onto the lake, mostly obscured and accentuated by heavy drapes. I feel myself drawn to the sunshine and greenish blue of the lake and the promise of fresh air. Behind the bar is a diminutive moustachioed barman dressed in an ill-fitting white suit, polishing glasses. The bar comes up to his chest.
'Hello. I am looking for the offices of Heritage Hotel.'
'Sir?'
'Heritage Hotel. I think they have an office here.'
He frowns.
'A hotel. Offices for a hotel?' I offer. Normally English will get me by but I start to think I ought to be speaking another language.
Someone comes into the room behind me and the barman gestures to them with relief.
I address the young man, 'Hello. Do you know where the offices of Heritage Hotel are?'
From behind me, before the man can reply, the barman says, 'Ah! Heritage! Heritage. Yes, I'll take you.' He scuttles out from behind the bar and gestures towards the young man, irritably brushing him out of the way with the gesture as if commanding oversized invisible puppet hands.
We go back into the earwax coloured room and head towards an incongruous metal framed glass partitioning wall in one corner of the room. A door is set into it and two blue lights glow through the frosted glass.
'Heritage.' the barman assures me, pointing and turns to return to the bar. I knock and enter the room with no great certainty.
It is a small room filled with fours large desks fitted cunningly into it in such a way as to leave only an odd, zig zag passage across the room. Sat at two of the desks are two well turned out young men who greet me warmly.
'You are Mr. Robert!' I am assured.
'No, I am Mr. Duncan.' I counter.
'Ah, yes!' his zeal undiminished.
The only sign that tells me I am at the right location is a black and white A4 print out of the hotel's logo, taped high on the wall near some hole that presumably once housed some air conditioning unit.
We confirm my details and I count out the notes onto the table. One of the men puts the wad of cash under his elbow and begins typing on his computer.
His colleagues initiates the default conversation:
'What country are you from sir?'
'England.'
Big smile, good teeth, 'Good.'
'How long are you visiting here?'
'We are living here. We've been here about 10 months. My wife is working here.'
'And your wife's country England?'
'Finland.' He looks unconvinced. 'Northern Europe.' Still unconvinced he tries a small smile and returns his gaze to his work on the computer between us.
I sit and reflect if I really wanted to deposit a large sum of money in such a place. The man with the paperweight elbow is still typing. I enquire gently if the process will take very long, not presuming that it should be simple though unable to see how it could be protracted.
'Oh no sir. I am just preparing your receipt.'
Another few minutes pass I get my receipt printed, tucked into an envelope and folded into a brochure (the first such sign of any corporate branding). I shake hands with the men and leave the cold blue light, back into the tallow room, cutting through the fug, past the swans, the staved in wall and out into the bright light of the white-walled courtyard where the green tuk tuk sits waiting like a cheerful beetle.
Tuesday, 4 March 2014
Monday, 3 March 2014
Elehpants, crocs and peacocks
Anu's view from the car window today: on the way to Batti – in Minneriya. Guess it makes a change from an ABC service station and a kestrel.
Sunday, 2 March 2014
The Scream / Wild Palms
We took the kids to a theme park yesterday. It consisted of a set of theme park rides set around some warehouse style buildings with a half-disused feel to the whole place and some terrifying murals. The safety notice for the bumper cars observes that "persons under the influence of alcohol or any medicinal or recreational drugs" are not allowed on the rides. I'm guessing the muralists and designers of the rides have a monopoly on the recreational drugs.
Almost Eiffel Tower
Iris wanted me to post this (the view from our [8th] floor down the fire exit stairway) and to include her rhyme.
Look at this picture, count the stairs – how many do you think there are?
Do you think there are as many as go up the Eiffel Tower?
Are you from French country?
At our tower blocks' security office this morning.
Q: Are you from French country?
A: ([unfairly] somewhat tersely) No. England.
Q: (concentrates, frowns) Which country?
A: (firmly and distinctly tersely) England.
Q: (warm smile) Good!
Oddly everyone seems to think I have a French accent suddenly.
Admittedly, my accent may perhaps have had some modifications to it after over ten years living overseas but I fail to see how it has in any way headed in a Gallic direction.
I have become accustomed to being asked if I am Irish in Finland (the assumption being that if you are ginger-haired, you are most likely Irish; for some reason the equally valid Scottish link is quite absent). That has never bothered me and, while I harbour none of the traditional dislike towards the French (in fact, quite the opposite), this has somehow got under my skin. (Hence the uncharacteristically rapid decent into a short-tempered dialogue.)
Sacrebleu!
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