What Ho, Fellow Colonizers

I am in Sri Lanka, in case any enquiring minds were wondering. I had intended to post back wee reports from the front, but the internet connection is none too friendly here. I’ll be back with you all next week anyhow, but it still seemed worth dropping a quick note. Apart from anything else, there have been a couple of bombs whilst we’re here, which probably didn’t get reported internationally, but in case they did: relax – am still alive it would appear. Although even as a sequestered tourist, you can’t help notice the intermittent gun towers and constant presence of armed soldiers – a bit unnerving. Apparently one gets stopped often by the police, but in fact this is usually because they want a lift.

Jez is good – a bit pink and stripey after an accident involving a snooze and variable shade on the sun lounger on day 2. This has proved fruitful ground for keeping me entertained, so I feel it was a happy accident, although he may disagree. I have remained cheerfully white under a permanent cement mix of factor a-gazillion. I am ok too, despite a coldsore, which feels grosser to me than is outwardly apparent – I feel I should have somebody go before me with a bell crying “Unclean: Unclean”. And I know the question on all of your lips: Yes, I have managed to poo. On day 4, no less, which is very good showing for a long-haul Annabee.

It’s been quite a weird holiday. Good experience to have seen Sri Lanka – amazing country. Hotel a sort of tourist compound/stalag, with gates and little men in berets and many (I imagine) self-awarded medals walk around with torches. Am not sure who they’re trying to protect us from, but locals hound us with trinkets from the beach fence nevertheless. There are not many guests here at the moment – a tough year – but it means one is constantly hovered at. They are very nice, and very helpful, but the concept of privacy is not known here. I’m also kicking myself for not learning my mantra of “I am allergic to dairy” (which I can now say in Portuguese, Greek, Spanish, Italian, French…) in Singhalese, cos it mostly induces a blank look, followed by the presentation of some dairy-laden dish. Meals are also served to tinny renditions of ABBA in Singhalese on the radio, apart from Saturday nights, when we are treated to a pub singer with a Casio keyboard circa 1986 (beats and all). Impressively he appeared to have learned all the lyrics phonetically, by which mangling allowed songs I thought I knew to take on a whole new light. “Please Release Me” and “My Way” will never be quite the same again.

The TV’s only English channel is a snow-filmed Al Jazeera, which I’ve really been enjoying. It’s nice to see news and comment with a more global perspective. I think I may take to watching it at home if I ever get satellite, although it does remind me of Dad’s visits, where any time you turn on the TV it is pre-set to some 24 hour news channel or other. Music-wise I’ve mostly been listening to Kris Drever on my ipod, and become increasingly convinced that he’s the singer/songwriter of his generation. Bizarrely, his music seems to go perfectly with the landscape here. I keep wondering if it’s ever crossed his mind that someone is listening to his music in Sri Lanka. Am sure the absurdity would surprise and please him.

We are right on a conservation beach, so I got to release baby turtles into the sea at sundown, which I have to say was pretty special. Also went in a glass bottomed boat right above many wizened turtles. They are big and old and somehow give off a sage vibe as they chomp seaweed obliviously. Had a great river safari, and got up close and personal with monitor lizards, which was rather like slipping through a wormhole to several million years BC – they are the most prehistoric things I’ve seen outside sci fi movies and expensive BBC reconstruction documentaries about dinosaurs. Also went on a lagoon trip on one of the catamarans that the locals use around here, which are basically a plastic hollow tube, tied by way of two branches and some rope to a large parallel log. I got to sit at the front and feel intrepid by sweeping aside creepers in the mangrove swamps, and ducking as we went under railway bridges, coming eyeball to eyeball with the aforementioned monitor lizards, who appear to co-exist in prehistoric harmony with the modern mobile-phone wielding people.

It rains a lot – apparently monsoon is a bit early this year. It pleases me, but Jez hates it. We get a dramatic storm every night. Feels like sitting in an amphitheatre watching the Gods rumble. Keep expecting popcorn and ice-hockey organ.

Driving is certainly an experience (and not one I would embark on myself). If you’ve ever seen footage of Calcutta, it’s much similar. About 17 pieces of traffic abreast on a two lane road. Trucks overtaking cars overtaking hay-lorries overtaking tuk-tuks overtaking mopeds overtaking bikes overtaking pedestrians overtaking dogs – all at once, as thin cows roam the entire carriageway with impunity. It’s rather like dodgems without the bumping. I learnt quickly to close my eyes and go to my special place. Entire families of four regularly pile ant-hill-mob-style on the back of a single moped – eventually one stops cringing every time a baby goes by perched in the handlebars. Mostly we’ve ridden about in tuk-tuks, sharing the odd coconut with a straw in it.

If you’re a bit, er, delicate like me, it’s actually a really difficult place to be. There’s a high degree of poverty, particularly after the tsunami and, as with many Asian countries, you are constantly pestered to buy things. Everybody waves and smiles as they pass, and mostly that’s genuine goodwill – they are a really lovely people – but also many are trying to reel you into conversation to get something from you. The beggars will tear your heart out, and learning that you simply can’t give to everyone is a lesson I’m perhaps not yet tough enough to take on board. You just feel sort of futile and guilty and frustrated. I veer from being irritated that I am besieged every time I leave the hotel, to feeling like a guilty corn-fed westerner and buying mercy tat that I don't want, whilst trying not to mourn my lost anonymity.

It’s not very relaxing, actually. I feel quite on edge all the time because I literally can’t just ‘be’ anywhere, either in the hotel or without. In fact, you can’t really leave the hotel without a guide of some sort. I find that I go to bed and have anxiety dreams about being in a big cage, pursued by tuk-tuks and turtles. (Just to add to my ongoing terror about the global economic situation and whether we’ll all end up standing for 4 days outside soup kitchens for stale crusts - Al Jazeera gleefully keeps me abreast of things lest I should forget whilst I'm away.)

There is a real culture of service here, which I guess is nice, but makes me feel quite uncomfortable at times. There is the whiff of servility about it, and one feels there is not nearly so much resentment about the colonialization as there should be. You have to tip everyone for everything, which for someone who feels a bit awkward about tipping a taxi driver at home, is moderately excruciating. I eventually got over myself – I mean, they’re just glad of the money, and who cares about my delicate social sensibilities? But when you do start becoming au fait with it, you really do start to feel like some kind of colonial God. (Remember that scene with C3PO and the ewoks…?)

I’ve been doing a little opportunistic photojournalism as well as the usual annabee satire and travel oeuvre, just to dip my toe in the water, and am moderately pleased with the results. I talked to people about the tsunami and took some pictures. It's a type of work that suits me, being a rather political person, and always keen to talk to people about their culture and political situation. It’ll take a while to process as I won’t tackle it before I get a new PC, but will post eventually on my website (along with more typical Annabee travel output).

On a contrastingly frivolous note, I had an ayurvedic facial, which was actually very good, although much of it consisted of a small Singhalese man manually picking my spots. This meant I couldn’t stop giggling for the duration, which left the poor man rather non-plussed.

I managed to read a whole book whilst I was here, so I can feel virtuous about that. And it didn’t have either pictures, or entirely comprise sudokus. I’ve been saving up my Douglas Coupland, and it duly performed, proving to be exactly as inspiring as I wanted it to be, and now it’s gone I feel slightly bereft and disinclined to start another. Always the mark of a good book when no other book will do.

Anyway – that’s the news from the roving Annabee. Back before you know it.

First posted on Facebook, 19th October 2008