Colombo Airport turned out to be world class, much better than what we were used to back home in Mumbai. And though our Motherland fancied itself as a regional superpower, our Indian rupees were not accepted at the forex counter. Not even at ICICI Bank. It was a rude surprise: we were in a foreign land with practically no money. Back home, we had been offered 1.6 Sri Lankan rupees (SLR) for every Indian rupee (INR), but we had hoped for a better deal in SL, and now we were in a soup.

Well, blessings come in different shapes and disguises, and on strolling around in the marketplace, we found currency changers offering 230 SLR for every 100 INR! We exchanged 10,000 INR for 23,000 SLR: 7,000 more than what we would have got in India.

While our rupee may have been a pariah currency (officially) in SL, the people on the whole did not seem to mind Indians around them. We were treated respectfully. Strangely, though, every time we stepped out in casuals, the Lankans mistook us for Pakistanis or Bangladeshis, while when we were in our business suits, we were correctly identified as Indians!

Shocks and surprises

In Colombo, we were staying at Hotel Renuka, in the equivalent of Mumbai’s Nariman Point, an area called Galle Road, complete with its own Marine Drive. Soon, we were in for more shocks. Calls to India, we found, were charged SLR 50, and water SLR 40 per litre. At one place, we drank coconut water for SLR 10 (first cheap thing) but had to give SLR 10 to use a urinal! So, the cost of ingesting and eliminating water was the same!

There were no metered auto-rickshaws on the streets. The Tuk-Tuk (as it is called in SL) cost SLR 80-100 at least, depending upon the clothes we were wearing. To us Mumbaikars, used to a minimum fare of INR 9, this seemed outrageous. Newspapers were prohibitively expensive (Rs 25). The Business Standard of the day had errors in its dateline and its lead headline! The lead story also doubled as the main editorial in a bigger font. The papers sucked up to the President, who was present at every corner, on every hoarding. The Opposition was conspicuous by its absence.

But if swapping currency had been difficult, finding good vegetarian food would prove a bigger challenge all through our stay in SL. At the Majestic City Centre, which had numerous shops selling cheap CDs and DVDs, we could not find a single pure-vegetarian restaurant. Not even one serving plain idli-dosa or some other Indian food. Finally, Anjappar, a Chettinad restaurant, rescued us. My friend Nirav had their Special Thali while I enjoyed hot soup to take care of my cold. Lankans are predominantly non-vegetarian, so Jains like me would have a hard time finding food there.

Footloose

We were on a business trip but Lankans didn’t do business on the weekend, so on Saturday we decided to slip out of Colombo. We could go to Kandy, which has Buddhist temples and the Elephant Orphanage nearby. We could also visit Anuradhapura, which has the remains of SL’s old capital.

In the morning, we sought directions from the hotel executive, then the auto driver, and then other people, but everyone gave us a different opinion on directions, timings, modes of transport etc. We decided to see Anuradhapura first as its ‘sights’ were best seen during the day. Our plan was simple: we would reach Anuradhapura by 2 pm and Kandy from there by 8 pm. We could stay the night at Kandy and return to Colombo on Sunday.

We decided to travel by train to get a feel of the country. The Fort railway station had a Tourist Information Centre, but the staffer inside was not of much help. He said the next train to Anuradhapura would leave at 6:30 am, but he was clueless about the connecting train to Kandy or anything else that we asked. We had 45 minutes on hand, and strolled around in the adjoining market. Bollywood’s influence was apparent here. Movies like Don, Jaaneman and Gangster were being shown. Himesh Reshamiya also followed us everywhere.

On returning to the station, we had our first look at the railway platform, which was clearly primitive. The train was straight out of Lawrence of Arabia. Mercifully, it chugged fast enough to stay ahead of pedestrians and cyclists. We had hoped the other passengers would be able to guide us about the journey, but we were wrong. Every mouth emitted a different answer, and some even emitted more than one answer.

From the train, we got glimpses of the Sri Lankan countryside. Greenery, coconut trees, clear blue skies: it was a delightful sight. One gentleman told us that the train would run as a ‘local mail’ (meaning more stops and a bigger crowd) after Kurunegala station. We asked whether road would be faster. He said ‘maybe’. It was just the kind of answer we had come to expect of Lankans.

We finally reached Kurunegala at 2 pm, with half the journey still remaining! So we decided to skip Anuradhapura and visit Kurunegala instead before continuing on to Kandy. But there was nothing of note in Kurunegala, only hype. We had a lunch of fried rice, banana sabzi patties, extra-sweet tea milk shake (tea) and avocado juice at In & Out, Kurunegala. This was an international standard fast food joint: excellent hygiene and service. The manager was half Indian.

Sweet Kandy

It was raining in Kandy when we reached at 6 pm. On the way, we had seen a beautiful temple, which had prompted us to ask a fellow passenger about the famous Tooth Relic Temple. He said it lay two stops ahead. On getting off, we asked for more directions and eventually returned to the temple we saw first!

The Tooth Relic Temple, a Buddhist shrine, was beautiful. It scored high on both architecture and atmosphere. Flocks of foreigners could be seen here. The temple name, we learnt, originated from the fact that a tooth of the Buddha was preserved here. The temple was tourist-friendly, and had an audio guide facility.

After visiting the temple, we went looking for a hotel. The first room that we saw was terrible. It had no attached toilet. Then we found Victoria Hotel above a non-veg restaurant and behind a beer bar. It was a seedy place but the room was functional. Since the town was closing for the night and we intended to stay only a few hours,  we took it.

Our dinner that night was memorable: an enormous ‘paper’ dosa. For the first time, I ate more than Nirav! The town was already closing for the night when we reached Food City supermarket. It had varieties of fruits and pink bananas. Then we had a coffee at KFC (my first, since I avoid non-veg joints).

We returned to Victoria at 9.30 pm and found it closed! Imagine a beer bar closing at that hour on a Saturday night in winter! We managed to enter after waking up the caretaker. Next morning, we got up early and left for the Pinnemala Elephant Orphanage. We reached Pinnemala at 8.25 am, five minutes before the opening time. But we were disappointed as there was no elephant bath scheduled for the day since it had rained heavily during the night and the river was in spate. Anyway, we saw the elephants at play.

The Pinnemala Elephant Orphanage was formed to take care of abandoned, orphaned and injured elephants. Pandu was a two-year-old elephant that lost his left ear in a leopard attack. Savitri was a four-year-old female elephant that fell into a pit when only a day old. Many other elephants were born in the orphanage. We saw them being fed. Would you believe an elephant baby drinks 35 litres of milk in a day!

And back

Our bus journey back to Colombo was supposed to take two hours but took four. We wanted to see House of Fashion in the afternoon, but it closed on Sundays at 2 pm. So we went to see the Colombo Lighthouse instead. We had imagined a tall tower, from which we would have an unhindred view of the sea, but what we found was a little building closed to public. The other buildings of note, like the Parliament, were also off-limits. At times, Colombo seemed like a military camp. Our auto would get checked at least twice or thrice each day.

Monday Morning! We completed our business meetings. Between one set of meetings, we had a 90-minute break. We used the opportunity to shop, and rushed to House of Fashion. It was a good shop with brands like Louis Philippe, Valentino Rudy, and Gap etc available at heavily discounted prices. I was not sure of the stuff’s authenticity, but it was good.

We completed our last meeting at 7 pm, and the client’s CEO recommended another store: ODEL, which we found to be the best we had seen in SL. It was so good in fact that we lost track of time, and when we reached the hotel, it was 8.15 pm. After all that shopping, packing posed a big challenge. And on the way to the airport, we ran into a military checkpost, where we lost precious time. Thankfully, we did not miss the flight. At 4 am IST, on Tuesday, we were home.