Jackpot in a Curdpot

Ayubowan friends~
It took us only thirty minutes to fly across the channel between India and Sri Lanka, allowing just enough time to swallow the pizza puff offered by the hurried Sri Lankan airways stewardesses wearing peacock-patterned saris, so it was difficult to believe we really went anywhere, much less to a different country. It took no time to get through immigration and pick up our luggage (which was over our allowance by 10 kilos already~ ouch!) and be met by a driver whom Helaena had arranged to receive us. But driving into Colombo, we were immediately impressed that this is a different country from its big sister up north. The first, and most shocking, piece of evidence was: brilliant orange coconuts. In India they are green, sometimes yellow, sometimes brownish, but never orange! Second, the ladies are allowed to show a bit of leg, if they desire... sometimes their skirts actually came up to just below the knee, which I found fascinating. The signs written in the local script (which I am not certain is Sinhala or Tamil) looked like a parade of little animals. There are pickups and cross-bikes here, a feature that reminded me more of South-east Asia than India. It was a full moon holiday, so the streets were extremely quiet and all the shops closed. Evidently, Sri Lankans have more holidays than anyone due to their civility in having every full moon day closed for business.

We are staying with our friend Helaena, who has the fortune of living in a very posh flat in the Hilton Colombo Residences due to her industriousness in actually having a job and being a junior diplomat rising in the ranks. She has been away in Delhi though and we are anticipating her return along with her three cats, who love to be petted. We are backpackers in disguise here and enjoying the amenities fully (sauna on the third floor, etc.). The view from the eleventh floor is lovely and we can see the Indian Ocean stretching out beyond the city and ships in the seas. We have gone to the US Embassy, which is right on the ocean and smells like saltwater, to get things rolling with Alp’s visa interview. At a shopping mall, we discovered one can buy excellent-quality DVDs for $2 a piece. Most of Colombo seems rather tame and business-like compared to the frantic cities of India but walking up and out of the Fort area, we went into the Pettah district, which was surprisingly intense. It is the main shopping area of the city and it seemed like at least half of the men we passed said hello or were trying to get our attention. The streets were packed with people and, as one shoe salesman pointed out to us, many of them were Muslim women come shopping for the day, not having cooking responsibilities with it being Ramadan. There are so many things to enjoy about being here and I will leave it to Alp to describe some more of them. We feel so lucky to have such nice friends, here and there and everywhere, and are missing all of you~
love~
Ingrid

Howdy?
It is a different world here not only because of the yogurt but the Hilton Residence is not an experience that we have been used to lately and Helaena’s house is very nice plus has very friendly cats. Our place in Pune was luxurious but of course not furnished and when you stepped out the door most of the construction was not finished around us. That was a different feeling. Here everyone is paid extra to be friendly to us so there are lots of “Hello sir and good evening Madame”. Funniest part for me is going down to the sports complex in my faded clothes and sandal look while everyone around are sporting synthetic and nike look. We have not been able to start working out as we planned because of our lack of shoes. But today after shopping around I managed to find a $4 pair of school brand tennis shoes which are my ticket to pumpin iron. And I can’t wait to see the reaction when I finally summon up to courage to use the pool in my longita (the Indian underwear that I have been using at the beaches). So far we are making excellent use of Helaena’s library and learning about detoxifying among other things, and creating a schedule for detox. One last thing I had wanted to do in this trip was to detoxify and in Kerala they had the Panchakarma, ayurvedic detox method, but we kind of didn’t have the time for it and also it involves a lot of throwing up and other uncomfortable things. Of course there is the tourist version where you get massages and hot oil dripped on your third eye. Well instead now we are going for the old trusty sweaty.
Among the novelties that we found in the grocery store number one is the yogurt that is excellent and the cheaper variety comes in clay pots; fresh shitake and oyster mushrooms among others, cheap good stout and Belgian white, sapid ginger beer and fruit and fishes. It is marvelous of course to have flat to enjoy these things.
On the visa front there could be a wrinkle, but I won’t bore you with that before it is certain.
All these wonderful things still don’t keep us from missing everyone who is dear to us. No beer better in the world than the company of family and friends, but the two combined is an experience on a higher dimension. –audience “wah wah”
alp