Pt. 3/4: Prohibition, Rozzers on the Take, Sartorial Carnage and Airborne Irritants - The Worst 5 Moments Of The Trip

…because even the best holidays have lowlights.

1. Kandy’s draconian drinking laws

We’re still not sure if this was just confined to Kandy itself or whether it was the case nationwide, but our chosen location to see in the New Year turned out to be a tad more disappointing than we’d originally hoped. Mainly because as of midnight, New Year’s Eve, every bar in the city without exception stopped serving alcohol for a period of 24 hours. Whether this was because of the Islamic community, the fact that the president himself happened to be in town, or due to an uncompromising attempt to ensure civil order on one of the most potentially rowdy nights of the year, none of us know. Suffice to say, we were able to have a few drinks in an expat bar before the booze shutters came crashing down, nothing else seemed to be happening in town, and upon arriving back at our hotel at ten to one, found ourselves locked out. We finally got let in, but were then told that the champagne Mark had brought and that we requested be put in their fridge to chill was unrecoverable that evening. Cue an early night and the unusual sensation of waking up on New Year’s Day feeling refreshed and not ill in the slightest.

2. Great rooms but terrible service one night, terrible rooms but great service the next.

At the Sunani Hotel, Kandy and ‘The really weird place in the middle of nowhere our driver took us to the night before New Year’s that I don’t know the name of’ respectively.

3. Looking Sri Lankan police corruption directly in the face and having it smirk back at you

Following a pleasant meal in Colombo with Mark’s parents, there were the three of us speeding back to our hotel in a tuk-tuk when we get pulled over by a cop. He says something to the driver in Sinhalese, then looks at us sitting in back seat and demands we all get out. He then proceeds to ask us for our passports – only Mark had his on him, Sophie and I having left ours back at the hotel. You know, so that we wouldn’t lose them or anything. This chap, quite a young guy, slaps Mark on the shoulder, says he’s “okay”, looks at Sophie and I, smiles and lets some air out through his teeth in a “well now, what are we going to do with you then?” kind of way. When all three of us explain that the passports are back at the hotel and that he’s more than welcome to swing past there and inspect them himself if he wants, he just looks at us, smirks maddeningly and then looks into the middle distance as though he’s waiting for something.

Sophie starts to get rather impatient with the guy’s attitude, as well she might, starts to protest and is then angrily rebuffed by the copper, who spells it out – “This is NOT your country, you need PASSPORT!” – what happened after that I can’t quite remember. I think the tuk-tuk driver may have said something, or maybe the copper’s colleague did, I don’t know, but somehow he dismissed us all with an angry shake of the head and a scornful expression. Not keen to hang about, we sped off.

In conversation with guide Sam a few days later, he was of the opinion that all the cop wanted was to fleece a couple of tourists and get a bribe from us, which we’d all suspected anyway, though with Sam’s family connections in the police, we got confirmation from someone who knew what he was talking about. Talk about the wrong arm of the law…

4. Having my beloved leather jacket partially munched by beastie(s) of unknown origin

With Japan being as cold as it was and Sri Lanka as hot as it was, upon our initial arrival both Mark and myself were reluctant to drag our bulky winter wear around with us for the next fortnight. After asking at the desk of our the-flight-landed-in-the-middle-of-the-night-so-we-really-need-somewhere-
to-stay-and-we’re-not-fussed-where hotel, the morning we checked out, they very kindly agreed to keep our jackets there until we came back again en route to our return flight at the end of the holiday. Great, until it was time to pick them up, whereupon the collar of my much loved second-hand leather jacket was revealed to have been eaten away by species unknown. I made a point of drawing the owner’s attention to it, but beyond expressing disappointment there was nothing I could do. They were ultimately going out of their way to do me a favour, no money had changed hands and I’d put it there at my own risk. That’ll teach me to be a lazy freeloader…

5. The bites, dear God the bites…

I’m of the opinion that Sri Lanka’s population of mosquitoes are the highly trained, elite stealth bomber precision-strike ace pilots of the mozzie world – the bastards seem to know exactly what location on the foot is likely to cause the most discomfort, they seem well-versed in the technique of carpet-bombing both forearms simultaneously, causing the victim much simian-esque scratching humiliation the following day, and even pioneering offensives such as biting a victim on the ear. Make no mistake, Sri Lankan mozzies are true professionals, even malarial in certain regions (meaning they really pack a payload). Mozzie nets and tactically positioned incense coils can slow them down, but ultimately there is no escape, the only consolation being that their bites rarely irritate for more than a day or two, unlike their sadistic Japanese counterparts…