Sri Lanka Week

Some flowers. A symbol of Sri Lankan hospitality or some such...

Rather in the same mould as a hotel special night - and having had one too many themed buffet meals than we needed over the past week, thank you - this week's going to be Sri Lanka Week, so if you're not interested in Travels In Serendib, I'd give it all a miss if I were you.

We did a hare-brained, breakneck tour of Sri Lanka over Eid, as usual ill-informed and wilfully determined not to be told what to do. We had help at hand - an 'inside job' had been arranged by Sri Lankan pal Deepika, who had a driver at hand. The scheme was simple - clock into Colombo at the dreadful hour of 2.50 am thanks to Air 'we like the cheap slots' Arabia and stay briefly at the Ramada Katunayake at the airport before whizzing up to Kandy for two nights staying at the Earl's Regency, Nuwara Eliya for a night at uber-funky boutique plantation house The Jetwing Warwick Gardens and then back down to Colombo for an evening at the Mount Lavinia before flying out again in the early hours.

There was method behind the four-night madness. We had travelled to Sri Lanka before, a week's stay at the lovely-looking Sun House in Galle. That week was to turn out to be nothing short of disastrous, featuring a gurgling twit English hotelier, a randy old monk, sham tea plantations, rats piss blankets and The Worst Meal Of My Life. We eventually escaped to Colombo and got drunk before fleeing Sri Lanka vowing never to return.

I reviewed the Sun House Hotel for now defunct food blog The Fat Expat back in the day. The review's linked here and worth a read for a laugh. As a taster, it starts...

"What more could you want to make your boutique hotel experience unforgettable than the facilities offered by the Sun House in Galle, a former colonial bungalow converted into a small, exclusive and luxurious hotel?

The Sun House offers a gurgling twit British owner who appears to have escaped from a comedy show, limited and inflexible dining, a set of threadbare towels and sheets, broken plumbing and a nice, steady stream of rat's piss onto your pillows as you sleep. It really is the perfect way to come to a state of fear and loathing in Galle."

As for The Worst Meal Of My Life, that was at the gloriously beautiful Lighthouse Hotel in Galle, in probably the most handsome restaurant I have ever dined in. That one's linked here for your listening pleasure. As a piece of review writing, it's one of my personal favourites, by the way and still makes me, despite everything, laugh. Here's a snippet:

"In fact, the entire meal had come out and then simply gone back. And the waiter didn’t bat an eyelid. He had obviously seen this happening before: seen the breathless anticipation of romantic couples turned into wide-eyed horror and revulsion and then plunge into despair."

Sarah 'The Hedonista' Walton went to Sri Lanka and loved it, writing it up as an ethereal and magical experience. I could never reconcile that with our own snarling, resentful journey of furious disappointment.

So this time around Deepika talked us into it - but we decided to move so fast that if we encountered disaster, at least it would be fleeting. And I'm glad we did it now, because we had a fantastic time - a roller-coaster ride of ups and downs that was never less than fascinating, frequently endearing, sometimes frustrating but never in danger of going anywhere near the painful lessons of Galle.

So welcome, armchair traveller, to Sri Lanka Week...

If You Don't Like It, Leave

Song Celebration in Tallinn, Estonia (Photo credit: ToBreatheAsOne)

Last year we managed to carve out a few precious days from the round of visits to family & friends that have become so core to our summer leave routine and visit Tallinn in Estonia. I even posted about it, so stunning were the place and people. It was a double whammy as I'd already decided to set part of my fourth book, Shemlan - A Deadly Tragedy, in Tallinn, so the opportunity to do a little resarch combined with a much needed slice of 'us time'.

 We were a true pair of 'idiots abroad' and didn't even bother researching Estonia, so we were very lucky indeed to fall as comprehensively on our feet. This year we decided to go to neighbouring Riga in Latvia, the second of the three Baltic states that saw the 'singing revolution' when the populations of Estonia, Latvia and Lithuania stood in the street in an unbroken line spanning all three nations, hand in hand, and sang. The Russians, perhaps understandably, threw up their hands and went home.

Much against our better judgment we booked with Ryaniair, but it was the only direct flight with reasonable timings. Funny, those 'bargain prices' don't half start to look less attractive when you've paid £70 for a bag, £10 for a seat etc etc.

This is the bit when we actually do some research on the place we've booked to visit - not that we were planning to, it just happened. And, believe me, it's not good. We flicked through websites with growing horror. The travel advice is unanimous - this place is a tip. Currency exchange scams, prostitutes, pick-pockets, cut-purses, thugs on the streets, pricing scams, nightclub bouncers beating punters up at ATMs to extort their PIN numbers. Turns out Riga is the mafia-infested crime capital of Northern Europe.

Nope. Stuff that. We decided to cancel. Of course Ryanair doesn't offer refunds. And Michael 'crawl on your belly over broken glass for a discount' O'Leary wants £160 to change the ticket.

You live and you learn. We're going to Sweden instead.

Victorian

Image by King Dumb via Flickr

As the recession bit hard around the world, timed somewhat propitiously for Dubai’s already-tanking real-estate market, a new trend appeared to emerge in the world’s favourite ‘laissez-faire’ economy.

Takeaway sandwiches appeared to be getting thinner. Spot On’s eagle-eyed lunchers caught a definite thinning of Zaater ‘w Zeit’s turkey-cheese furn’s, a more niggardly hand at work in Byblos’ daily specials and a certain lack of care in Circle’s salads. All has not been well in lunch-land. At the same time, prices went up – that Olive House Rosto Sandwich (a culinary treat by any standards) not only seemed to consist of less Rosto and more sorndweech, but also kicked up Dhs10 somewhere along the way, too.

This is the way that a truly ‘laissez faire’ economy reacts to inflation plus recession. First we get less for our money, then less for more money. Without pissy regulators to intervene, annoying ombudsmen or consumer-centric media snooping around, you can systemically ride some of the worst belly-punches that a recession is going to deal out by sharing the shock to the system around the system.

Neat, huh? It’s Victorian England all over again – if the price of flour goes up, cut the flour with chalk dust and charge more for the bread. Well, why not? Nobody’s looking, are they?

We resisted Sharjah’s cunningly worded invitation to enjoy piped gas (“You take gas, pay Dhs1,000 for yellow tube, after install, you our bitch too much!”) and stayed with the bottled stuff. But FastFastGas used to get a call from us every six months. Then it seemed to be more frequent. For a while we’ve wondered whether they’re not quite, well, ‘filling’ the cylinders. Now we know. Last night, our gas gave out after a month’s usage. One month. We have changed no habits at all – what used to take 6 months to consume now takes a single month to burn through. And, worse, what used to cost us Dhs40 now costs Dhs85.

1/12 the gas for double the price. In a country where the stuff comes out of the ground.

Grief.

If anyone has noticed a grumpier tone creeping into the blog, be assured that normal cheery service will be resumed when I return from my impending leave. I thank you. Posting might be a little erratic for the coming couple of weeks. No marmosets were harmed in the composition of this public service announcement.