Early morning start, on the plane by 8 am, and broom! four hours later I am in Sri Lanka (I crossed a couple of time zones, so I got here a bit before 10 am). I did the standard money exchange (300 rupees to one dollar), bought a SIM card with 30 days unlimited data (US$ 7), and joined the queue and got on a cab. I see a country full of green and sun, and going down the new toll road, funded by the Chinese Roads and Rails initiative, in half an hour I reached downtown. I had booked a hotel near the old city, but unfortunately it ended being on a main thoroughfare in the market district, with big trucks delivering and picking up merchandise. The neighborhood is not pretty, but the hotel is comfortable and will do for the next couple of nights.
I dropped off my luggage and right away went for an exploratory walk. First of all I was hungry, so I had to find a place to have lunch. My default is always to look for a place where a whole bunch of people are eating, and in this case I settled for a bakery, where a tray of sandwiches are brought to your table, and you can eat as many or as few as you want. I didn't realize this was the way to go about it, son instead I was given the menu (everyone can recognize a foreigner here) and had a chicken biryani that was to die for.
On the way I stumbled upon the Red Mosque (one of the city's sights), and a bit later I stumbled upon the ... take a deep breath ... Temple of Sri Kailawasanathan Swami Devasthanam Kovil. Wow, that was a mouthful. Both the mosque and the temple were closed to the public, but of course they are worth looking at as amazing architecture. The mosque was pretty plain, but the temple reminded me of the busy street where my hotel is located, with layers upon layers of people extending from ground to heaven. Speaking of people, the folks here have very dark skins, going from black to very dark brown. They do not have African features, however, and I would say they are "ethnically" related to the Australian First Nations.
Now, I had walked under the torrid sun to the neighborhood of the temple with the unpronounceable name because I was looking for a motorcycle rental place near it. I found it and was very unimpressed; it was basically someone's home with a sign. But I knocked and the door was opened by a pleasant man who assured me that yes, this was the rental place and right there, in the middle of the living room, was the motorbike I would be renting. We quickly shook hands on a deal to rent the bike for five days, he accompanied me to the bank to get the money, and then we went back to his home to write an agreement. I am not sure he felt comfortable enough to write an agreement in English, so he got me paper and pen and dictated me what I was supposed to write down. I had to do some editing, which received careful scrutiny from my host, but at the end all was done (main clauses were a non-refundable commitment of US$ 100 to the rental on my part, a US$ 100 refundable deposit, a US$ 50 charge if I were to lose the registration and insurance papers of the bike (the only way to lose them would be if the police were to confiscate them because of a traffic infraction), and my commitment to pay for any necessary repairs). I payed him, in advance, the US$ 100 of the rental and the US$ 100 of the deposit (which is very trusting of me, since I will come to collect the bike tomorrow afternoon), but I was humbled by his trust on letting me have his bike with such a thin deposit and trusting I would come back on the day and time agreed (rather than abandon the bike at the airport and abscond to India). I think I am going to like these folks.
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