Sri Lankan adventure

Dear all, I am sitting in a friends house in Colombo, Sri Lanka. I am covered in mossie bites and either have mild dengue fever or developed a more severe reaction to my bites. I have had a somewhat blighted trip here, beginning with a very bad neck thanks to whip lash. This was soon diagnosed and remedied by the Sever sisters. I also have very swollen toes (one on each foot) and a bandaged up arm. I think that with careful deduction I am just reacting to mossie bites which make my joinjts ache. Dengue fever is nicknamed the 'breaking bone' fever, and I feel that it would be a much more painful expereince.
We arrived in Sri Lanka almost 2 weeks ago where we were whisked form th e air port to the Hilton hotel around mid night. We had a lovely suite on the 27th floor that offered the most amazing view of Colombo. I would sit on the arm chair with the door wide open onto the balcony with a beautiful balmy sea breeze ushering in clear refeshing air whilst reading my book. Bliss. Further pleaseure was to be found 23 floors down from th e room where the pool was located, open from 6 till 10 dily. So I would be there first thing in the morning and last thing at night swimming with dragon flies and bats. I also had my first ever room service of a beef burger! Soooo goood. Marjorie arrived a few days later really tired from her trip from Wales, but soon was up to exploring Colombo with me. So we visited amazing shops, colonial style hotels that served high tea on the sea front (Galle Face Hotel), whizzing aroung on tuk tuks, usually ok but occassionally get a rude driver that rants at you the entire time because you refuse to pay the grossly inflamed prices reserved for foreingers. We checked out of the hotel where the bill was wrong as th eprecence of two Mrs.Fillers seem to hgave thrown them and so my room was not charged for! Saved me $100 or so.
From here we transfered to a friends house as she and her husband were going on holiday to Nepal for a few weeks also. They have a dog called Namack who is an afghan mountain dog they adopted from kabul while living there last year. He is a beauiful dog, if a little undisciplined. He has amazing green eyes and blonde coat, huge wolf like head and the sweetest temperment. However, he is a pain in the arse whilst walking. Every other step he must investigate a smell and so drags you all over the place. And if you try and pull him to heel he has developed a very effective way of counteracting, he parks his bum refuses to budge, leaving to comical walks. He is an extremely intelligent dog that led to some stress and shouting later in the trip. I will explain in time.
So on the weekend after arriving we three (Paul, Marjorie and I) jumped into Jet Wing hired car with driver and set off for tea country. It took roughly 4 hours of driving along the most incredibly winding and climbing roads to reach our destination near Castlereigh lake (east of Kandy) of Norwood bungalow. This is the most luxurious place I have stayed in my life. Probably the most expensive, but you only live once right? High on a hill, with tea gardens all around and a stunniung valley view. I still had a bad neck at this point and so was often found on the floor doing my painful excercises to the staffs bemusement! Bed tea was brought at you specified time, breakfast. lunch, tea and supper of incredible quality. I would reccomend this bungalow to anyone, it is amazing. Good walks, a free tour of the local tea factory. Actually very complicated business and I now appreciate every cup that little bit more.
From here Paul returned to Colombo, but Marhorie and I continued in a car to Hunas falls. £ hour drive to again a stunning location that was somewhat blighted by the Hunas Falls Hotel. A 1960's concrete attrocity that makes one think of Aberystwyth university. How they were allowed to build the ugly thing is beyond me. But it was cheap and cheerful, and offered the best nights sleep of the entire trip! The food was very hit and miss, sime strange combinations, but overall a nice stay. Breakfast entertainment was the local tree surgery company hauling up huge logs of wood. They were really health and safety consious with t shirts, shorts and flip flops. These giantic logs were winched up and craned onto a very innappropriate little truck, and then hand manouvered with brute force and primitive tools to sit horizontally on the truck bed. The whole thing was terrifying but enthralling to witness. I really thought I would be witness to a bloody accident with crushed limbs.
We aborted our seconf night after the children next dorr woke us in the wee hours and pegged it to a hotel that we read about in the rough guide. Helgas Folly (look it up I beg as my descriptions will do it no justice) sounded fun. I have never been such a crazy, ecclectic or excentric place. The entire place is hand painted with film posters and traditional Sri Lankan figures and prints. It is full, anf I mean full, of any conceivable item, picture or theme. It is a warren of corridors and rooms lined with lights, furniture, painting ets and wierdly and worryingly cribs! First we shown a room with a double bed despite specifically requesting a twin. Then after some comotion the twin room down the corridor was opened. The balcony was littered with years of detritus, the windown painted with the most aweful butterflies that resembled bats, the toilets are lined with old magazine pages, and the toilet didn't work! There were cobwebs and dust motes every where. Anyway, we deposited our bags in the room and left to some of Kandy, where the hotel is located, with instructions to fix the loo. So off we went for some food, that was aweful and a peek at the gem fatory. We watched an amzinf film on how they extract the stones, and my god is it a primitive method. Very intersting. Then a short demo on how they are cut and polished. And then to the shop where er were complete magpies and spen hours looking at all the beautiful saphires, diamonds, quarts, peridot, citrine etc. I settled on a nice peice of lapis lazuli and had a customed made pendant of silver for £27. Marjorie got the most amazing green saphire and yellow/green stone. She also had it customised into a broach, and the green saphire loose to be made up in the UK. From there we went to th ecash point so that I could pay for my pretty pendant the next day. Then back to Helgas's where it all started to go so very wrong. We had a pre dinner cocktail, where Marjorie witnessed a human camelion. His m-o-v-e-m-e-n-t-s b-e-i-n-g v-e-r-y s-l-o-w. He was going up the stairs in his tennis gear when M said 'hello' He stopped in his tracks, did a double take, thinking he must have imagined the voice strated to to take the next step and thought better of it. He turned slowly and came back down the stairs and towards us. He was Helga's husband, a portuguese Sri Lankan with tea planter heritage. He talked for a while, as his spotty dog investigated and scratched from fleas next to us.
After drinks we sat in a pretty blue room with the amazing candelabras that have 25 years of built up dripping wax in the table centre. The food was amazing, coconut soup served ina a coconut shell, fish pie with good crisp ved and squidgy chocolate pud with icecream. Whilst eating the pud we coulde suddenly here descending foot steps from the adjacent Nut Cracker Suite, and from the darkened room wafted in a tall, elegant and stunning lady wearing a Kimono and huge square sunglasses.'Good evening' she said in a very posh english accent. This was the famous Madame Helga, who was from aristocratic heritage and had been married at the 'high alter'. She was a veru gracuous and interesting lady, with little modesty and many famous names to drop.
We eventually braved to eeerie corridors with their baby crips and made it to our room, and fairly promptly fell asleep. Morning arrived with cardamon bed tea served form ancient battered metal tea pot. We had breakfast on the terrace with the monkeys as company, creeping ever so slowly forward till you were convinced one would drop from the roof above and make off with your melon boat. Oh and muddy coffee that apparently is just like African, not very pleasant, almost a raw taste to it.
So back to our room to pack up and leave for our next place. I took my wallet out to tips and discoved that 5000 rupees was missing. We phoned madame helga and soon enough the manager, husband a room boy were in the door way and i was saying how the money had gone from our locked room, that I had come directly form the cash point etc and so had not spent it and then forgotten. The 5000 was deducted from our bill, but the two lime sodas drank whilst sorting oiur were charged for! So off we went to pick up our gems leaving the bags and on the understanding that the police were to be informed and the theft investigated. I got and paid for the pendant, Marjorie was smitten with another beautiful stone and purchased that and I designed a pin broach for it to be made up and then delivered to us in Colombo on the Friday.
We then returned to the cash point as I needed cash to pay M for the accomodation, it was then that I discovered that my cash card had also been taken, having see one of my cards that morning I didn't realise that the other has gone, having been placed behind it. So we hare it back to the hotel to tell them about the new development. The reception was less than helpful, and really got ones hackles raised. Particularly when after dismissing the idea that the card was stolen with the cash he suddenly though, and asked that the payment for the room was not affected, was it? No, as M had paid on her card. Well thats ok then you could see written on his face. He said you know you could go the police if you want, but I know what they are like and it probably wont achieve much etc etc. We realised that nothing more could be achieved talking to the human camelion, and so left directly for the police station to make a complaint. It was failry fadt, if again primitive, with old fashioned type writes tapping away in the background. The policeman who we first spoke with had scary dead eyes, and asked me to write my account. Then referred to different department, and before we knew it we were sat in our car leading the way to Helga's Folly with two senior ranking officers following behind in a tuk tuk ( a threee wheeled vehicle with open sides that chugs slowly up hills, and definatly no siren!)
In wea ll go and the issue is discussed in Sinalese, and so we follow very little. The police suspected th room boy, but as a Tamil they would with or wothout evidence. (The car driver was asked to tell us what happened) and apparently the manager had dissapeared all morning without reason, so Helga and Mr suspected him. Anyway, thououghly fed up by this point, and card definatly cancelled, we left for Tamarind lodge. This was a real haven, again more expensive, but it had a pool so woulnd down with a swim, had great food and wine sneakily drank frm tumblers in the bedroom.
Subsuquent news on card was that it was found swallowed in a cash point, and the Helga lot now doubt that the money or card were ever stlen form the machine and that I must have dropped the 5000 rupees (eventhough I had 15,000) and card at the bank! Absolutly barking mad people. So if you go there, be warned.
Now back in Colombo, where the fun didn't exactly end. Whilst out for dinner with Pauls work buddies we recived a call from the neighbour to say that the dog had got loose and run off with the local floosy! So we high tail it back to find the maid in hysterics (fearing job loss probsbly) and no Namack. Paul goes searching, whilst me and Marjorie calm down Silvi. He will be back we reassure her, once he has had his way with the floosy and gets hungry he will be back. So off she goes, and we to bed. I am woken at 1 am with a call to say that bad dog is out side, come quick. So knock on Pauls door, and run out after Namack. He is accompanied by the floosy (owners do not approve of her), and so I struggle to get his attentiona and am forced to follow in pj's until I can get hold of his collar. He then parks his bum and I am forced to drag him along the road.So back into garden, door bolted and back to bed. 7am paul is distraught and knocking on my door, 'did you bolt the door, he's gone again'. Door wide open and Namack gone for a second time. I deffinatly bolted the boor and pulled and shoved it toi make sure. Luckily he was just out side this time. I said he was a clever dog, and I reiterae it, and he has=d only gone and learnt to nudget the bolt up and slide across with his nose. It is now firly padlocked, though you can still hear him nudging it discreetly.
So here I am almost ready to leave for New Delhi. Back to terrible heat and pillution and no sea. So sad. And joints aching like mad.
Oh, yeah, Sri Lanka getting very tense and looks like the government will turn very nasty. Will see, but we had a checkpoint ask for our passports last night, a first ever according to P and M who come here regularly. Also gun boats adjacent Galle Face as we had a farewell drink, and anti aircraft guns staioned ontop of a near by tower. Very intimidating.
Speak again soon.x