Little
Britain
I don’t want to turn this into a travel blog as you can get a
guide book for that. Besides my blog provides no travel information
whatsoever.
We will swiftly move on from
people irritating me in Sigiriya with yoga and at the beach in Mirissa with
yoga, oh and sarongs, and skip through Kandy which was fantastic and pick up
our story in the Hill Country of Sri Lanka.
This part of the country was incredible. We stayed at a converted tea factory which is
half hotel and half museum and received a fascinating education into the
processing of tea.
We got to pluck our own tea at the small plantation owned by
the hotel, see it processed, packaged and then given to us as a small parcel
when we departed. It was one of the highlights of our trip.
The hotel was incredible. I am rather fond of kooky hotels and with the
exception of sleeping in a converted prison, this was one of the best and most
unusual places we have ever stayed.
While in the region, we did visit a working tea factory where their
produce is processed and packed for export.
We wandered out into the sea of tea leaf bushes and watched the women,
young to ancient plucking tea at an incredible rate. They work from 8am to 6pm and pluck around
16-18kg a day. That is about how much
weight I have put on in the last two years so I can completely appreciate how
heavy those baskets must be for them.
They get paid around 625 Sri Lankan rupees which works out to around 3
quid for a days work. It is back
breaking. We went tea plucking for forty
minutes and collectively had barely enough to fill a cereal bowl.
I felt desperately sorry for these ladies and
the hard, heavy lifting they did all day.
Their fingers were rough and calloused and their skin blackened by hours
in the harsh sun. “Iyo, what happened to you, you use to be so pretty, you got
so dark”.
On our last night in Nuwara Eliya, our last stop in the Hill
Country, we had a nice Sri Lankan curry for dinner and sat in the hotel bar by
the log fire, as it gets quite cold in the evenings. We drank tea and watched the T20 cricket and
said to each other. I don’t think we
have ever been more English than we are being at this very moment.
From Nuwara Eliya we caught a train to another little town on
the eastern edge of the hill country called Ella. Highlighted as one of the finest rail
journeys in the world we were so excited about this stretch of the holiday as
the views were supposed to be absolutely breathtaking.
Instead, it poured with rain for the entire journey, it got
dark early and we didn’t see anything.
You should go.
Curiosity
Killed The Man Who Asked That Question One Too Many Times
Our holiday was going absolutely perfectly. We couldn’t fault it apart from the rubbish
train ride but we blamed the weather for that.
After all we were in the Hill Country and being terribly British, so
yes, it was the weather, cats and dogs and so forth.
However, I was growing grizzly. Once again, I was the subject of much
interest. This time, I was asked
straight off by total strangers, “where are you from?” I always answered, the UK, I was born there,
but my parents are originally from Sri Lanka.
The response to this was invariably, “aaaaaaahhhhhh". That's it.
Now, on this trip, I had no weird hairdo as that was cleverly
hidden under my dorky Tilley hat. None
of my clothes were transparent and I was clean shaven so no moustache to speak
of therefore why on earth was I getting hounded about my origins.
I think I preferred the staring instead of the interrogation, as now I am
older and more grumpy I will go in for a
staring contest with the best of them, whereas when I was 12, I would quickly avert
my eyes shyly out of embarrassment. Now,
I will glass yer, pub brawl style.
I know people were just being friendly and curious but given
we covered so much ground on this trip, when you are asked the same question
4-5 times every day for 16 days it does become very wearing.
I was also frequently asked whether I speak Sinhalese, so
like a performing monkey I would rattle off the few words I know, some might
even have been Tamil, I can’t tell the difference: Mother, Father, Little Brother, Grandmother,
Little Sister, Small Girl, Big Sister, Small Boy, Bum, How Are You?, Can I Have
A Shower?, Hiccup And I Went to Galle, Hiccup Stayed There And I Came Back
(Sinhalese rhyme for getting rid of hiccups which you say in one breath),
What’s the matter? Fart.
The final straw conversation went like this:
Chap: Where are you from?
Coconut: Me, we are from the UK?
Chap: Oh. Where are you originally from?
Coconut: The UK (I was only being pernickety on day 15
because I was fed up by this stage)
Chap: Oh. It is just you look Asian.
Coconut: (In my head: DURRRGGGGGHHHH!). Well, yes, of course. I have a dusky hue my good man, as my parents
were born in Sri Lanka
Chap: Aaaaaahhhhhhhh.
I thought as much
Coconut: (In my
head. Congratulations Sherlock. Cracked it).
I was so desperate to find a fellow “checkerboard” chick to
ask if she had suffered the same fate as me, but no luck.
My hubby in fact told me off for being snippy with the
gentleman in the shop on day 15 but appreciated I was getting a little tired of
the same questioning. I now have some
sympathy for Hollywood actors who have to do those endless press junkets. That said, I am not paid 20 million dollars
to answer the same questions over and over again, so I take that back. In fact, the only way I can stop anyone
asking me the same questions is to buy something in their shop for 20 million dollars.
Rob said that if and when we ever make it back to Sri Lanka
he will brown / black up for me. I
suggested he just does his face but doesn’t do his neck, arms and legs. Thought it would be quite funny and might shift attention to him over me.
Although, knowing my luck, I will still get asked all the same questions and added to that will get grilled as to why my husband has a skin disorder.
Although, knowing my luck, I will still get asked all the same questions and added to that will get grilled as to why my husband has a skin disorder.
Next Time: Chapter IV Roots
No comments:
Post a Comment