Travel by trust

People asked me to write a more positive blog this time. First of all; I never meant my other blogs to be negative. They describe my experiences (others might experience it different), and yes, my frustrations. But it’s one of the reasons why I love this country; it never fails to surprise me. This blog will start off with a negative story, but will end positive, I promise ;)

Some suitable Tuktuk Wisdom: 'Come as a visitor, leave as a friend'.

My whole live, I’ve been warned. For strangers, for men, for traders, for girls… Tell me a person, and I’ll be able to tell you I’ve been warned for them in one way or another…

Especially since I’ve been traveling in my own in a ‘foreign’ country (which feels like home), people feel like they have to warn me even more. “You don’t know anything about this country”, “a girl isn’t safe anymore those days”, “You don’t know what terrible things some people are capable of”, “Drugs, rape, alcohol. Be careful”… I could go on and on.

If I would get 10 rupees (which is about 3 eurocents) for every warning, I would be rich. Not just in Sri Lanka, but also in the Netherlands. Also, if I would listen to every warning, I would have no friends and I would never experience a single thing.

We have lately seen that bad things can happen everywhere, even when you’re biking home after work or school.. Even in a ‘safe’ western country like the Netherlands. So yes, bad things can happen in Sri Lanka as well.

But let me tell you something: Life is deadly, and most people die in bed…

And I don’t want to die in bed, lonely, without any good adventure to tell… I’d rather take some risks and enjoy life, with my Srilankan friends and family.

So I decided to travel by trust. Of course I trust my gut feelings (or feel my water, as we say in Dutch), and I pay attention. I don’t do anything that doesn’t feel good. But I believe, most people on this planet actually mean well. And you will sort out the people who don’t mean well quick enough. I know both my parents and my extra pair of Sri Lankan parents are really worried about me, and wish I wouldn’t do this, but I decided not to listen to all the worries and warnings and to travel by trust. Not only trusting others, but also trusting myself in my ability to take care of myself.

Since I arrived, I have only paid for accommodation for 6 nights, out of 54 nights since I arrived. Not because I didn’t want to pay for accommodation, but I feel like you experience so much more awesome things when you travel on trust. I have said yes to almost every trip or invitation. It makes me warm and thankful and makes me appreciate everything so much more. This was possible thanks to my amazing friends, and also to a lot of new friends. People I didn’t met before I stayed at their place. People who just wanted to be kind to a fellow person on this earth. I’ve had awesome tours from friends of friends. I’ve hopped into cars from the mountains around Kandy down to the city, because they were going down anyway. I’ve had lunch and dinner at houses of people I just met. People are very kind, friendly and helpful in this country. All around the world they are, but I feel like people are even nicer in this country. They just want to assure that you have the very best time and that you stay safe, on their paradise island. Sri Lanka, which literally means majestic island, is despite the regular frustrations of locals, the country of their heart. You come as a visitor, you leave as a friend, they say. And it feels like the whole country, including nature and weather, works together to make sure you will. Almost everyone who visits, falls in love with this crazy country and returns at least once.

Even the animals help to make sure you will fall in love with this country

But I am convinced that this concept doesn’t only work on this island. 

We all have been warned for strangers our whole life, and we probably all have warned others for strangers.

But what if, instead of warning and being afraid, we try to help others? If we wouldn’t spend our time and energy on worries, we could have fun instead. We would be connected by kindness and trust.

Then we won’t be strangers anymore.

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I want to thank all my old and new friends who made this possible

·       Aisha and her family (and cats), for picking me up at the airport and for not only providing me a bed, but a real home (with books), immediately after arriving

·       Thilini’s family, for adopting me as their daughter (and sister, including the teasing) while Thili is in Australia, and taking care of me as real parents, even after my blog about the flipflop rulebook ;)

·       Seta and her family, for hosting me and taking me to different religious ceremonies (I even fed an elephant!), and Seta again for being my personal trip organizer

·       Imco, co-owner of Surf City Guesthouse, to provide me a place where I can have some space for myself and do a relaxing morning swim and an evening beachwalk

·       Yamuna, for taking me to the most special party ever, hosting me in her house and lending me her bike

·       Father Ruwan, for hosting me in his priest and nun house for retreats and renewals and for praying for me, my family and friends, and his helper Lalith

·       Lucky and Aravinda, for proving me Kandy is indeed a beautiful city, if you know where to look

·       Buddhi and Thanu from Villa Windsor Castle for providing me a home without curfew

·       Sister Grace for the special lunch at the convent

·       Trevor, for allowing me to feature his tuktuk wisdom picture

·       All the other people who made me tea or food, took me on trips, showed me around, gave me tips or brought me in contact with people who might be able to help me

·       My friends and family at home for their love and support

Thank you!! I feel blessed

Powercut

Last year there was a power cut in the Netherlands, for about 3 hours and only in and around the capital city. The whole country went mad, because what do you do when there’s no power? How does everything function? How do you get to work? What to do without WIFI? Where did you leave everything and how do you find it back without light? And how to get to work when there’s no public transport?

The day after I arrived in this country, there was a power cut since 6 o’clock in the morning. The power went back on around 3 o’clock. Everyone was surprised the power went back on ‘that soon’, because ‘normally when it goes early morning, it doesn’t come back before the evening’.

This country is pretty laid back. Which is awesome, because it makes you relax. And it’s terrible, because it’s almost impossible to get things done. There’s always a tomorrow. If you make an appointment, there is an eighty percent chance it will not happen on that day. If your appointment belongs to the twenty percent that does happen, at least one of the parties is late. Reasons for an appointment being cancelled or for being late, could be, but aren’t limited to the following:

• The person is ill or one of his/her family members is
• There’s something wrong with the public transport (busses are too full or don’t show up or have to stop at the petrol station)
• The taxi driver didn’t turn up, was late or there was something wrong with the vehicle
• Something important suddenly came up at work/home/temple/church
• There’s a wedding (if you get the invitation 1 week in advance it’s early)
• There’s a funeral (which take 3 days)
• They didn’t wake up in time
• It’s raining
• It’s too hot
• The roads are busy because it’s early in the morning and everyone is on their way to work, because it’s lunchtime and everyone comes from school or work, or because it’s evening and everyone comes home from work or after school activities. Aka always.
• They had to charge their phone
• There was a perahera (procession, sometimes with dancers and elephants etcetera) on the road you had to take (they really pop up randomly)
• There was a protest so they blocked the road (It took a friend of mine 4.5 hours to go 25 km by public transport for this reason)
• There was an *insert animal that lives in Sri Lanka* on the road, or something else in their way
• They had to wait for someone else to do something
• The cops stopped them
• It was a long weekend (every full moon is a holiday, then there are loads of additional holidays)
• There was a power cut and they just had shaved half of their beard. They couldn’t come without shaving the other half so had to wait till the power turned back on.
• And this week, we can add another reason to this list. Due to the petrol crisis* (not enough petrol for the whole country) taxi’s and tuktuks don’t turn up for short trips, if they turn up at all. There are long lines in front of every petrol station, even if they are closed.

Side note: Half an hour late is nicely in time. No excuse needed.

One of the excuses: there was an *insert animal that lives in Sri Lanka* on the road, or something else in their way. In this case, both apply.

I didn’t make any single one of those excuses up. Many of those have been used to me multiple times during the past six weeks. Many of those, I was forced to use myself multiple times during the past six weeks.

I can get stressed and frustrated about nothing happening as planned and everything taking ages. It’s driving me crazy sometimes. Yes, it’s driving ME crazy. Me, who is always late. Me, who normally feels like time is liquid for me while it’s solid for the rest of the world.

But also, it makes you accept the world as it comes. You can get frustrated, you can get angry, you can get mad, but it’s not going to change a single thing. So you can better sit back, relax, drink a kingcoconut and enjoy your time, because the only thing that will bring change, is the day of tomorrow. Or tomorrow’s tomorrow.

We visited the temple, at one o'clock in the night. There was a prayer going on. Over loudspeakers. There was no way we could catch some sleep with that noise, so we decided to visit the temple instead.

*petrol situation got sorted. Everyone is confused because it got sorted relatively fast.

Disclaimer: I love this country. This country never fails to surprise me



The flipfloprulebook

Throwback to my days in Frankfurt, where the flipfloprules are simple

 

Imagine you are in another country, with a culture so different from yours it’s hard to understand everything going on around you. Imagine you don’t speak the language and don’t have the same religion.

Imagine there is an enormous unwritten book of rules you have to figure out, things that are so normal to all the others, that they don’t even think about it. They’re used to their habits and don’t even notice that this is not a human thing but a cultural thing.

For example:

You’re used to have only one rule about flipflops* or other footwear. You wear them wherever you want to whenever you want to. Walking in to someone’s house without taking your shoes off isn’t seen as rude, but taking off your shoes and walking around barefoot is fine as well.

In this new country, the first time you enter the house of your hosts, you take off your flipflops because you know that’s expected. Then they ask if you brought house flipflops. You don’t really know what they mean but they give you a pair of flipflops to wear. You wear them the whole day, and the next morning you walk down barefoot. When your host sees you, she tells you to get your flipflops because the house is “too dirty”. You don’t really care, but you walk up to get them anyway.

Then you find out that when you enter the bathroom, you’re supposed to switch to the bathroomflipflops provided. Also at temples you take them off before entering, but at some of the areas you can wear your flipflops and everyone knows exactly where those areas start and end. Except for you. You’ve never had so many rules about footwear but you try to learn them quickly, slowly start to understand them and follow them as good as possible. But sometimes, for example when you wake up and get out of bed and walk to the living room, you forget to wear your flipflops. Or when you come home and forget to switch your outside flipflops to the inside ones. And you feel so ashamed and stupid that it’s apparently so hard for you to do such easy things.

You can imagine that this brings a certain amount of stress. You are always strained and frustrated about yourself.

Imagine that you are lucky, because you are white* and western and well educated, and people in this country have a certain amount of respect for you based on those random facts.

Now imagine that you are in a country where you don’t want to be, but your own country is unsafe. Imagine that people look down upon you, your culture, your colour and your religion. Imagine that you don’t speak the language, and no one is there to explain anything to you or to help you to get to know the culture, the language and the unwritten book of rules. Imagine going to the bathroom at night, being too sleepy to think about the flipfloprules. You're walking down barefoot, putting on the bathroomflipflops in the bathroom and after doing your bussines you walk to your room with the bathroomflipflops on. In your sleepy mood you take them off in front of your bed and go to sleep again. Imagine this not being seen as a silly sudu nona* act but a crime.

For me, dealing with this situations is unbelievably frustrating sometimes. But I am here out of choice. Imagine being a refugee….

*Wherever I wrote flipflops, you can read slippers. Whichever word you prefer
*Sudu Nona: White madam. In this country, western foreigners like me are referred to as 'white' or in Singalese 'sudu'.

Disclaimer: I love this country