Kandy Land: The Three Temple Loop

 A rolling Buddha gathers no moss. (So not this one.)

 

Kandy is the cultural capital of Sri Lanka, and most visitors to the country choose to spend at least a few nights there, visiting the Temple of the Tooth (where it is alleged that one of the Buddha's teeth resides), taking in some Kandyan dance and making the day trip to Sigiria. As this was the final stop of my blissed out Christmas "escape from Kathmandu" we ended up booking four nights in order to be able to rest and relax, and so that I could have some quality time with my mum.

As a result, we had time to really soak in the ambiance and attractions that really make Kandy a special place - the Ceylon Tea Museum, Helga's Folly Hotel (one of the strangest places I have ever been - more on that another time), the Royal Botanical Gardens and the Three Temple Loop.

One morning we set out to do the 'Loop' - relishing the chance to get out into the countryside surrounding Kandy and explore some of the ancient Hindu and Buddhist temples nestled in the hills. Though some folks choose to do this as one long-ass walk, we hired a driver for the trip, and it was well worth the extra cost.

We visited three temples: Gadaladeniya, Lankatilaka and Embekke. Though ostensibly Hindu temples, each had a strong Buddhist presence (Hindus believe that the Buddha was the ninth incarnation of Vishnu, so he wasn't that out of place). Here are some of the most striking images of the day!

You go, girl.

A lotus flower pokes up out of a murky pond at Gadaladeniya, a temple built in 1344 on a rough shield of rock. Depending on who you ask, lotuses symbolize purity, overcoming challenges and/or enlightenment because they must fight their way through muck and yet they emerge a stunning flower. It was a lovely way to start the day.

 

  

Waterfight! Oh. No? That's offensive? Oh. 

After touring the interior of the shrine and circumambulating the stupa, I encountered these multi-coloured plastic vessels scattered about the backside of the temple. They are filled with the water that is used for Hindu puja (prayers), and they totally reminded me of a Fisher Price kitchen.

Best part m'day.

To be honest, this was probably my favourite part of the day. This little guy followed me around the temple grounds,  squeaking and tumbling and being the puppiest puppy ever. The old men at the temple tried to tell me to take him with me, and my mum was like "Do. Not. Tempt. Her."

Serious Business.

They kind of look like hipster ladies with stretched ears. Did I meet you guys in Portland?

A huge Buddha and sculpted apsaras at the Lankatilaka Temple. This was the largest of the three sites that we visited, a vast complex spread out on a hilltop overlooking the valley. Huge Sinhalese and Tamil inscriptions were painstakingly carved into the rock in the 14th century, and many stupas and buildings cover the grounds. There were also fantastic shops outside of the gates, and my mum bought some carvings from a local artisan.

 
Anyone have a bobbypin?

Dirty Dancing? Nobody puts Parvati in the corner! (sorry.)

The third temple on the loop is the most famous - Embekke Devalaya. This is the only site of the three that has no Buddhist presence, and is dedicated to Murugan, a Hindu god popular in the South - (I have always loved him because he rides a peacock. And he's green!) Murugan is Ganesha's brother and the son of Shiva and Parvati- that's a pretty kickass family tree. 

The temple is most famous for its Drumming Hall, a wooden structure that was painstakingly carved in the 14th century. Each ebony pillar is decorated with intricate carvings of animals, dancers and musicians - it was a whimsical place, and well worth the trip.

Kandy is one of those cities that people either love or hate, and I have a sneaking suspicion that those who dislike it are the ones who breeze through and don't give it a chance to charm them. So stay a few extra days - soak it all in, enjoy the art, and make sure you schedule some time for the three temple loop.

After all, you might meet this guy. Isn't that enough incentive?

Little Kandy dog. I'd name him Gum Drop. Or Sugarpie. Or Wayne.

Dinner on the Beach in Tangalle: Sha Sha Seafood

Oh, you went to a revolving restaurant? That's cute.

Sometimes all you need to be happy in life is a perfect post-apocalyptic beach setting, a candle, cold beer and a cooler full of the day's catch.

We ventured from Tangalla to Marakolliya beach to find Sha Sha Seafood, a small beach shack perched high up on stilts, famous in Southern Sri Lanka for fantastic fresh shellfish. After a long walk along the sand under eerie, pre-storm skies we finally reached the hut (whose name means "Little Sister" in Sinhalese).

A stilted, candlelit hut on an idyllic beach

The sun set behind bruised clouds as we skulled a cold Lion beer and selected our meal from the menu - a platter of the fresh catch of the day. Our options were still-wriggling prawns, lobsters, squid or an entire fish. Mum hopefully asked, "any crab?" and our waiter/owner/awesomeguy went into the candlelit kitchen to inquire. We were in luck - there was a single live crab just walkin' around and waiting for us. We ordered him, as well as prawns, some grilled calamari, 3 lobsters and a plate each of Sha Sha's famous potatoes.

Garcon, may I see a menu?

The food arrived, piping hot and slathered with gingery garlic butter. Each bite was delicious, and though I am normally a crab gal (really, Dear? Are you?) the lobster was sublime, my favourite part of the meal. The rain pounded heavily on the roof of the hut as I demonstrated my mad skills crustacean disemboweling skills (with my bare hands and teeth). I rescued many a crab leg and lobster antenna destined for the trash plate and amazed the table with the additional meat I was able to suck out of the shells. Like a true foodie - or, like, a dirty little raccoon.

The bill ended up being less than a third of the cost of Ministry of Crab (and for 4 of us rather than 3!) and the food was impeccably fresh, expertly prepared and - oh, let's ditch the fancy words - fuckin' great. The rain may have come down hard and the beach been deserted, but my tum was full of Lion beer, crabby goodness and a massive lobster tail - everything was right with the world. My inevitable deathrow meal (I figure it will be espionage or a sexy crime spree) is finally settled - I'll be ordering from Sha Sha.

 

Shramp!

I'm sorry I keep eating you and your friends, Mr. Crabbly. But I gonna keep doing it.

A Train Ride Between Ella and Kandy

 

 The view from the train.

 The Sri Lanka of my imagination is a lush, tropical tear drop draped in tea plantations, rain forests and colourful temples. While traveling along the Southern Coast I saw beautiful beaches and majestic forts, but it was only once I boarded the train from the hill station Ella to the cultural capital of Kandy that I could appreciate the most stunning scenery the country has to offer.

When I was a wee babe of 18 I spent my first trip through Europe practically living on trains. I had a three-month unlimited Eurail pass and sleeping on trains was cheaper than a hostel bed, so while the train whizzed from Nice to Milan, Paris to San Sebastian or Berlin to Brussels I curled up like a little prawn in my seat. And while my 31 year old body does not fit so neatly and…. flexibly into a berth, I still have a soft spot for rail travel. 

The timetable at Ella train station

I think that train journeys are the most romantic way to see a country. The rail lines that crisscross South Asia hearken to a time when jute fans twirled lazily above tables laden with gin and tonics, a time when adventure travelers could traverse Asia overland from Turkey to Afghanistan and finally to the Southern tip of the great Indian subcontinent.

Trains often take a more scenic route through mountains, plains and coasts than roads do, and so for panoramic beauty alone a train journey is the more lovely option. But it’s the cities I love most. When you arrive into a city on a bus or in a car, you see its pretty face, the one it wants you to see. When you arrive by train you see the strange backstage areas that no one on the streets is allowed to access – the hobo shelters, the arcane graffiti and the weird industrial backside of an urban space. It’s a special bond, like catching a beautiful woman dressing and noticing a huge scar she keeps hidden. Beauty through imperfection – a bus can’t even begin to compare.

And so with my propensity to wax poetic about train travel, I knew that I had to manage my expectations of our journey to avoid disappointment lest the trip be less beautiful than promised by guidebooks and fellow travelers. I needn’t have worried. 

 Gorgeous scenery in the hills between Ella and Kandy

 During our seven hour trip through the mountains of Sri Lanka I witnessed some of the most breathtaking scenery I have ever seen. The train passed idyllic villages, picturesque farms and towering temples as we climbed and dipped up around hills, wound our way through tunnels and valleys and sliced through countless acres of pristine tea estates. Standing in the open door of the train car I couldn’t help but smile like a giddy child as I waved to sarong-clad men and enthusiastic school children. 

 Dude. It was totally super munchee.

 Goofy little gal

  On board the train we were treated to Sri Lankan hospitality – we had ignored our best traveler instincts and declined to bring food aboard the train, believing there to be a dining car, or at least locals selling drinks and short eats that we could dash to buy from the station platforms. This was not the case. We were doomed to eat babybels and chocolate from our stash until an adorable family across the aisle noticed our predicament and offered us crackers, samosas and fresh sweet rolls. Their rambunctious tomboy daughter kept us entertained for hours, and they even passed my mum their number and told us to call if we had any problems while in their country. We could have used their help last week…

We pulled into Kandy two hours late – not too shabby for a country that measures how late the trains are running with the unit “day,” (as in “only half a day late”) and were picked up by the gracious Sarath, owner of the Freedom Lodge. It had been a long day, but a rewarding one. I stepped off of the train with an understanding of the culture and beauty of the central hills of the country, an understanding that only rail travel can provide.

Sri Lanka is one of the most beautiful countries I have ever visited. Its beaches are legendary, its food delicious and its people hospitable – but it was a train ride through the mountains that was the highlight of my trip. Just remember to pack a lunch!

 

Violet Dear is giddy with train-inspired joy

How I Got Right Here (and to London) - 2012 in Review

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                                          They said "get thee to a nunnery" and I was like, "yeah, that's probably for the best."

2012 was not an easy year.

At some point in late 2011 I woke up and realized how badly I had fucked up my personal life, and I reacted with a horror akin to a David Lynch heroine in a surrealist nightmare. I had spent years making selfish choices in a cloud of self-grasping ignorance, and one of the most devastating periods of my life was when I truly realized that the choices I had made were in no one’s best interests, including my own.

I could barely live with myself. I tried all of the old remedies to make myself feel better, and nothing worked. I had a new dharma-inspired window of self-awareness that made it impossible for me to bury my head in the sand with quick fixes. I plunged into a brutal depression that lasted four long months of anxiety, rumination and deep, dark sadness. I think the only thing that kept me afloat were the 24 credits I was taking at school – I was forced to stay responsible and not spend all of my time drinking wine and crying, no matter how much I wanted to.

Time passed, as it does, and made things a lot easier. I started a pretty strict regime of yoga, meditation and dharma practice and began eating healthily and drinking less booze and a lot of kombucha. By April I graduated with First Class Honours and was feeling much better – and thank god for that, because I soon had a major bombshell explode: I was denied entry to grad school at McGill University.

I had been so confident that my perfect gpa and spectacular references would get me into the Masters of Communication program at ‘Canada’s Harvard’ that I didn’t actually apply to any other schools. When I was informed that the admissions board didn’t think my proposed research topic (dealing with the ethical issues around UNESCO World Heritage Sites) was suitable for the department I was absolutely crushed. I felt rejected and disappointed in myself. All of the sudden I had an empty calendar ahead of me - 12 months of panic-inducing blank pages.

Good thing I like filling pages.

Within a few days I was feeling better. My mum said, “Vi, I know it doesn’t feel like it now, but this has happened for a reason - you didn’t get accepted because it wasn’t right for you. I promise the right path will reveal itself.” I didn’t know if I really bought her new age garbage, but I did decide that another year of vagabonding was in order.  I wanted to start my journey in Nepal with the November Course at Kopan Monastery and then I would backpack through Africa and the Middle East.

My favourite prof was not jazzed on the idea of me lacing up my nomad shoes - again. “You need to get experience in your field, not only for your CV but also for your grad school applications. Backpacking is not going to help with your goals, Dear.” I knew she was right, but I also knew that I still had unfinished business with my wanderlust. I was at an impasse.

And then I went to Chapters. Normally I abhor big box bookstores, but I was downtown and needed to buy some gifts. On my way to the checkout I noticed that there was a table of discounted books – 2 for 25 dollars. I snapped up a copy of Little Princes, a book about an organization in Kathmandu that works to reunite trafficked children with their families. “Salient to my interests,” I thought. I had no idea how salient until I sobbed my way through Conor Grennan’s account of starting Next Generation Nepal. I went home and drafted a very unorthodox cover letter (it mentioned that I like to make salads and other random Violet Dear facts) and sold NGN on the fact that they needed to let do pro-bono professional work for them. Turns out I had some free time in 2013. About 10 months of the stuff…

Within 4 hours I had sent the email, and two days later I heard back from a very interested Martin Punaks. Over the next few months it was solidified – I was offered a spot on the NGN team. I was (am!) humbled, grateful and excited to start working for this amazing NGO.

My plans to explore Africa were scrapped and instead I started making arrangements to live in a Kathmandu, a city that I once described as magicaland mystical and… filthy. But first, before I could even leave Vancouver, before I could attend the November Kopan course – I had something even more important to attend to. Grad school applications. Oh yeah. Those.

My last few months in Vancouver were a hectic whirlwind of packing, dating (don’t ask. Murphy’s Law.) and tourguiding my little heart out, attempting to save up a nest egg off of which to live as I worked in Nepal. My research on different grad school programs was completed in fits and starts, great energetic bursts during which I would read journal articles by professors with whom I was interested in working, compare course names, peruse syllabi and search tuition costs.

I realized that as much as I love the theory of Communication Studies, my interests are now more allied with Anthropology. I wanted to marry my love of architecture, travel and heritage, and lo and behold – the United Kingdom actually has many grad programs dedicated to just those things! I knew that I wanted to obtain a Masters Degree in Cultural Heritage Studies, and that I wanted my longterm career to involve working with governments of developing nations to manage their built heritage in a way that does not maintain or create the oppression of vulnerable minority groups. As I researched schools, one choice came up again and again as a perfect fit - none other than the University College of London.

Now, I learned a lot from my experience with McGill – it’s foolish to only apply to one school. Do not do that - rejection stings, yo. But I also didn’t have the one valuable asset that I needed – time. Applications take forever, and my departure date coincided almost perfectly with the opening of UCLs application portal, so I knew that I would be applying in the literal last hours before entering a month of silence. I carefully pre-planned all of my references, my essays and my personal statement and waited for November 1^st to approach. I also chose a back up school – the University of York. I submitted my packages online and headed to Nepal.

Schools in the UK do things a lot differently. In North America there is a deadline for grad school applications, a date by which all applications must be submitted. At that point a panel compiles all of the candidates and goes through each one by one, deciding all of the admissions at one time. In the UK, nuh uh. New students are all decided on a first come first serve basis, and I knew that I would receive a yay or nay answer within 10 business days. So, let’s do some math (or maths – I am heading to England, afterall):

November 1^st – I applied

November 11^th – I checked into Kopan for a month of meditation 

November 15^th ish – answer sitting in inbox

December 11^th – Sprung loose from the monastery; allowed to check email

Fuuuuuug.

By December 5^th I couldn’t bear it any longer. I was positively brimming with nervous anticipation for news that I knew was so close, yet so far away. I snuck out to an internet café and there was indeed an email announcing that I was accepted to the University of York. I was pretty elated, but still no answer from UCL. I trudged back up the hill to Kopan and let everyone know. I got a lot of high fives, and it was nice to be a confirmed for something, but I was still hoping for London.

Two days later we took a massive group trip to circumambulate Boudhanath Stupa and many people decided to stay behind to grab lunch and a coveted espresso before returning to Kopan Hill. After a gut busting lunch of momos I guiltily snuck away to a small internet café. I was about to announce the trip a bust when amongst all of the spam and junk I noticed a message with “Congratulations” in the subject line. I clicked on the email and began to cry. It was from UCL, advising me that I had been offered a spot in the Masters program for 2013/14. Did I want to accept?

Yes. I did.

It’s been a month, and the news still hasn’t sunk in. I am a future alumnus of a school that was ranked fourth in the world this year (nbd, nbd) and that feels awfully weird for the white trash spawn of a teenaged mother from Surrey. I have a morbid fear that everyone will be all Eton-y and fancy and I will be way out of place with my tattoos, course little trucker’s mouth and my love of John Waters. BUT. That doesn’t really matter when I think about how excited I am to live in LONDON, a city that I love. One of the most exciting, interesting and fun cities I have ever visited. A city that looms large in my imagination as a place I’ve always felt I belonged. And if I am worried about my white trash roots, honey, this is a country that has spawned Little Britain, The Sex Pistols, Vivienne Westwood, The Arbour and Geordie Shore. In this company I’m all class.

2012 started off unbelievably terribly, and when McGill turned me down I thought that it was only getting worse. But, it turns out that my mum was right – THANK GOD I WASN’T ACCEPTED. It was not the right thing for me. Right now I would be sitting in Montreal working on a degree that doesn’t really fit what I want to do for a career. I would not have gone to Kopan and met hundreds of amazing people and learned more about dharma – and myself. I wouldn’t be the Ethical Tourism Advisor for NGN, a position that will enable me to help countless vulnerable children and learn about my field, and I wouldn’t currently be in Sri Freakin’ Lanka. Most importantly – I would not be moving to London in October to attend my dream school.

So, 2012, you taught me a lot of lessons. You kicked me around a bit, but you were filled with a bounty of surprises and wonder by year’s end.

And 2013? I like you already.

Lots and lots of love. Go follow your fucking dreams, bitchez.
xoxoVD

2013 is off to a good start.

A Cooking Class in Galle Fort

Local soft drinks at a roti shop

I get a lot of joy out of cooking (to coin a phrase). On this blog I spend a lot of time eating, sure, but you rarely get to see me roll up my sleeves, tie my hair up into a kerchief and throw down in the kitchen. I love to cook.

After a slightly disappointing afternoon in Galle Fort (during which we got a bit scammed) I was ready to dive into the secrets of the bold flavours of Sri Lankan cuisine. We booked a cooking and street food course with local legend Juliet Coombe, with whom we had already taken two fantastic historical walking tours.

 Culture jamming at Serendipity Cafe

 

Juliet is only the second Westerner to marry into of the 240 original Muslim Fort families since 1948, and her reputation precedes her. Everyone in town knows this former foreign correspondent – and most of them have been featured in her numerous books, self-published by Sri Serendipity Press. Her knowledge of the Fort’s history and its living culture is evident in every word she speaks, and she has a personal investment in the area – her two little “bubbas” are both half Sri Lankan and will grow up in the UNESCO protected Fort.

While Juliet runs a walking tour and publishing empire, her husband has his own business – he runs Serendipity Arts Café, the location of our cooking class. Every day between 5:30 and 7:30pm they close down the restaurant so that they can host the classes (for the utterly reasonable price of 20 dollars!), a combination of hands-on experience, street food walk and a fresh meal prepared with achingly fresh ingredients.

 Our fearless leader and chef

Our group was quite large, so Mum and Tim were paired with a couple closer to their age and I was grouped with a wonderful couple from London. We started off as a large group making pol sambol – a dish that combines shredded coconut, chilis, lime and onions and is normally eaten with hoppers (more on those later) for breakfast or as an accompaniment to fish.

Juliet had us sample the pol sambol three ways: with our fingers, with bread and with a fork. She asked us to compare the experience and to decide how we liked it best, and we were overwhelmingly in favour of eating with our hands – a fact that made the kitchen staff beam with joy. See, Sri Lankans believe that eating with your hands is in fact more civilized than using the Western utensils that were foisted upon them during colonization. There are three reasons for this:

1.    You don’t know where knives and forks have been, but you do know where your hands have been.
2. Your fingers provide the first level of digestion and you are less likely to overeat than if you’re shoveling food into your face with a fork.
3.  Bits of metal flake off of utensils over time, and could be one of the reasons for Alzheimer’s disease in the West.

Plus it’s super fun to eat with your hands, duh.

Mango seller in the Fort

At this point we split into two and my group went on a food walk of the Fort while my Mum and Tim stayed behind to cook in the small kitchen. On our stroll we visited three of the local food vendors and sampled ripe mango covered in salt, black pepper and chilis, hot roti and freshly roasted peanuts. Sri Lankans refer to pre-dinner snacks as “short eats” (this is pretty much the best description of anything I have ever heard). Short eats are necessary when an average meal takes hours to prepare (note to Violet Dear – when you are eating your ‘dinner’ of cheese and triscuits while standing over the sink you can think of Sri Lankan women slaving over open fires and feel relieved. Or guilty.)

Ayurvedic, healthy and tasty!

 Juliet explained that the average Fort home has fish delivered three times a day! Fruit, veggies and snacks are also delivered daily by bicycle-riding vendors - this is the land of Ayurveda, after all, and food is viewed as medicine for your body and mind, so it’s gotta be fresh. An average of 30 spices and herbs are used in each dish, many added not just for their flavor but also for their health benefits.

Violet Dear gets her hands dirty

Back in the kitchen we began to prepare hoppers, the most beloved of all Sri Lankan breakfast dishes. These thin little crepe bowls are the not-too-distant cousins of Dutch pannekoekens (a very tasty relic of colonization) and can also be served in a weird patty form (string hoppers) or have an egg cracked right inside of them as they cook (and then they become – you guessed it – egg hoppers). We helped the chef create some delicious egg hoppers smothered with a ragout of of tomatoes, onions and chili. They tasted like decadent little McMuffins (I mean that as a compliment, promise) and once I spooned some pol sambol on top I was in heaven. BREAKFAST HEAVEN. 

I can't tell you how wonderful this smelled

We took more of a backseat role as the chef prepared a beautiful pumpkin curry and a fish curry as he walked us through the steps. No Sri Lankan meal is complete without “rice’n’curry,” an assortment of small tapas style dishes served with a heap of rice, and though the main ingredient of each dish varies, they all feature liberal amounts of chili, curry leaves, fenugreek and coconut milk. The resulting cuisine tastes like a cross between South Indian and Thai food, with its own twist.

Egg hopper and fish curry

We sat down to eat the fruits of our labour (let’s be honest – it was mostly the chef’s labour) and I discovered that my new friends, a lovely couple from London, have very similar interests and pop culture tastes to me. It was a wonderful surprise to find myself talking about Sleater Kinney and It’s Always Sunny over a meal on the other side of the planet! And what a meal it was. Delicious, interesting, fresh and delivered to our mouths with our fingers – it’s the most refined way to eat, after all.

New friends eating our feast

Galled in Galle

So beautiful. Makes me want to go crazy in my attic room, like a Jane Austen character.

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I am lying in my fan-cooled room in an historic mansion near the Southeast wall of the Galle Fort, sticky and slightly pink like a Barbie left in the sun. It’s hot here. The kind of dizzying, sickly heat that makes you sway on your feet when you least expect it. The kind of weather that necessitates that you stay indoors between 1 and 4 in the afternoon – not that I ever complain about that. A typical Violet Dear travel day looks like this:

7/8am – wake up and read in bed
9am – breakfast, yo

10am – some kind of rewarding cultural activity
1pm – lunchies (cheap and local or streetfood)

2pm – FUCK ALL (which includes internetting and writing)
4pm – meditation…. (or nap) 

6pm – beer and sunset

7pm – dinner

9pm – writing or reading and music in bed

11pm – sleep

Right now it is my favourite part of the day. The “fuck all” part – a part that I NEVER seem to action when I am at home in Vancouver. I am a serial do-er of things, and I simply don’t relax often enough unless I am schlepping my way through a tropical country. Backpacking is actually pretty hard work, and so I cut myself a lot of slack when I want to lie on my bed under a whirling fan (or on a hammock, or on a beach etc), listen to Amy Winehouse and write.

But I’m angsty. See, I set out today to write a glowing piece about how much I love Galle Fort – how the history and living culture blend to create a place quite unlike any I have ever been, (my impression helped in part by the tours and books by Juliet Coombe) but then I got scammed. A shitty opportunistic scam that I should have known better about – that I should have seen coming a mile away.

Beautiful local rice and curry - but the fish wasn't the only catch...

Not too badly, but just enough that my ego was wounded and my identity as a “good traveler” was called into question. In my desperation to escape high priced, bland tourist food I dragged Mum and Tim to a locals-only rice’n’curry joint pointed out on one of our walking tours, excited for authentic spicy food at a fraction of the price found along Leyn Baan or Pedlar Street.

We sat down in the divey local joint, much to the curiousity of the local men, and were served huge portions of delicious food. The owner (or owner’s helper, or friend?) spoke good English, he was charming, and brought us fancy lime infused hot water with which to wash our hands (you eat with your hands and no utensils in Sri Lanka) and an entire pineapple cut into big juicy chunks. 

Mumsy eating with her hands for the first time

My mum looked at me and earnestly thanked me. “Dear, I would never walk into a dirty little hole in the wall like this if it weren’t for you. Thank you – you really broaden my horizons.” My chest puffed out and I felt so experienced and intrepid as I replied, “oh, yeah, well you just have to do this sort of thing, otherwise you’re just a tourist and not a traveler.” I never once suspected anything was awry, and that is probably why my ego took such a blow when the cost was announced.

Juliet had told us that the meal would cost about 150LKR a head (1.25 US). Factoring in the Pepsis and pineapple, I assumed that the total cost would be 700LKR. When we prepared to pay, the diminutive fellow who had been serving us announced that the bill was 3000 LKR (26 US)– four times what I had estimated and nearly the cost of a posh European meal at a nearby boutique hotel.

Now, I know exactly what happened. This gentleman knew we could afford the price, and he was sick and tired of seeing fancy establishments selling Lavazza espresso rake in all the dough. We walked in, sat down and ordered rice and curry of the day – without asking the price. We weren’t served the big sloppy, quick’n’dirty plates that the local men were given, instead we were given more of a presentation on platters and with shared bowls.

I tried – in vain – to argue politely and tell him that we had been told a much different price. He just used his strange looping English to run in circles and insist that the meal should be 3000LKR. I finally gave up and handed over the currency, the delicious taste in my mouth sullied by disappointment and the weird shame one feels when they have been cheated and they know it and the cheater knows you know it. Like a little bitch or a squealing little piggy or worse – a mark.

The happiness and pride that I had felt about being able to show my mum something unique and off the beaten track was dashed, and I felt hot anger rising in my already sticky hot cheeks. Thankfully, according to my scheduled relaxation time, the last few hours have been designated for “Fuck All” so I have had a chance to cool down.

I realized that I spent nearly half the cost of my fraudulent lunch on a fancy coffee today – so it wasn’t the actual cost that made me have such a vehement reaction, it was the feeling of being made a patsy. Somehow the crazy price we were charged took away from my blissful feeling of “traveler-dom” – the little dirty local joint doesn’t seem so authentic in my memory. #firstworldproblems

And therein lies one of the ethical problems of traveling in the developing world. As travelers we’re all scrambling to have these “authentic” experiences, but we get irked if the person giving them to us is entrepreneurial enough to want to earn enough money to one day travel the world himself – or at the very least, buy his family the necessities they need to like, live and shit. Sigh. Ethics. Bah.

LESSON 1 – No matter how experienced of a traveler you are, you need to remember that you can still get scammed, and it will be humbling and your ego will not like it.

LESSON 2 – ALWAYS ASK HOW MUCH A THING IS BEFORE YOU CONSUME THAT THING.

That’s all I got today. I promise I will write much more lovely things about Galle tomorrow.

One Love, VD

The Ministry of Crab (and one Crabby Broad)

This is about as happy as Violet Dear gets.

When I was flipping through the pages of the Sri Lanka Lonely Planet one entry in particular stood out for me: The Ministry of Crab.

You guys remember that I like crab, right? Ahem? Do ya? How 'bout now? Yeah. So it was pretty obvs that my visit to Colombo was certain to include a crab feast that would leave me bloated and crustacean-y. Sri Lanka is a crab wrangler's paradise, but the sad fact is that they export over 95% of their best guys - mostly to Singapore (to make the infamous chili crab).

Ministry of Crab wants to change that. This upmarket restaurant uses cheeky branding and high quality ingredients (including dem export-grade lagoon crabs) to draw people through its doors. It's just one of many establishments housed inside of the newly renovated Old Dutch Hospital, a colonial building that dates to 1662.  Three local foodies spearhead this crabcentric eatery, and they do a brisk business catering to Colombo's nouveau riche and the sudden onslaught of tourists eager to visit now that the civil war is over. And sister, it ain't cheap. 

But that is where the mumsy comes in. See, I am here in Sri Lanka with Mummy Dear(est) for a Christmas vacation. She jokes that her holiday destinations are dictated by the location to which she has to follow me that year - and she is actually kind of right. She and her longtime boyfriend Tim (who I have nicknamed "Classic Rock Tim" due to his predilection for blue collar rock n roll) were planning to visit me in Kathmandu, but I knew that I be ready for a break from the cold (and pretty much everything else in Nepal) by Christmas. Thank you, sweet sweet foresight!

Mum and Tim are still avid backpackers at the age of 50, the kind of working class boho/hippie/artsy folks who go to Burning Man. Last year they went to Egypt and Jordan, and this year Australia and Sri Lanka. They're here with me for a few weeks of wandering around a country my mum has been dreaming about for years, a paradise of tea plantations, pristine beaches and colonial architecture. And a few years ago, if we had come here on our way to the Maldives, we would have had it almost all to ourselves.

Now, not so much.

When the decades-long civil war came to a tense ceasefire in May of 2009 the rest of the world realized the stunning gem that they had been avoiding was now safe for traveling. Tourism has EXPLODED. Now, I know we are here at New Year's, but the scarcity of available accommodation is shocking - the supply has not expanded as quickly as the demand - and the prices have skyrocketed. This ain't no Southern India. Sri Lanka realizes that it is located just nextdoor to the Maldives, one of the most exclusive vacation destinations in the world, and they plan to rebrand themselves as the next big thing. Prices for guesthouses and hotels are more in line with the West than with the rest of South Asia, and backpackers' style rooms just don't seem to exist. So we have had to kind of say "fuck it" with the budget and are living a bit large.

Ministry of Crab is about as large as you can get in this part of the world.

 A beacon in the humid night.

We booked our reservations for a Boxing Day Feed and giddily pretended it was Christmas Dinner. We knew it was going to be a bit spendy, but this time of year is always rife with the admonition, "it's Christmas!" as a justification for all kinds of bad behaviour. We laced up a crab bib and got started.

Next time it's Jumbo all the way, baby

We ordered a portion of the claypot curry prawns, some curried garlic (yep. That is a thing here. Squee!) and 2 monster sized crabs (ok, they were just mediums. But they were big!) We settled on one crab served with melted butter and one stirfried in an unctuous blend of spices, oils and peppercorns, for which Sri Lanka is also famous.

After watching me suck out the brains of some pretty gigantic prawns with veiled disgust, Mum and Tim's jetlag and headcolds caught up with them. They had only finished two thirds of the butter crab and avoided the pepper crab completely, leaving me to psych myself up with a gourmand's peptalk and crack my knuckles - and a lot of crab claws.

Tell me - honestly - why I should give one single fuck about any other kind of food?

Now, this was a pretty swish place, so unlike most of Asia I didn't only have the help of my teeth and my little grippy fingers to get the crab meat outta its shell - they had crackers! Hell, they even cleaned the brains and goop and organs out of the body and pre-cracked some of the more tenacious legs for me - I felt like a princess in the crabbiest fairytale ever. Princess Crustacea from the undersea kingdom of Yum. (That's enough Lion beer, Dear.)

I have to be honest and say that the experience at MOC was not perfect - a lot of the dishes really needed a bit more kick and definitely more salt, and our waiter was determined to ONLY talk to Tim, even when it was clear that my mum and I wanted to do the ordering (Tim's not a huge crab guy). In fact, the waiter seemed to be refusing to make eye contact with us gals, and when my mum presented her credit card to pay, the waiter still handed it to Tim to sign. Guys, when I am in a chai shop or whatevs I expect this archaic gender shit, but in a restaurant designed for travelers and expats? C'mon. Serious balls. Stop it.

But despite these mild hiccups, Ministry of Crab is kind of like Disneyland if you like shellfish - prefabricated, yes, but designed to make even the grinchiest folks happy. Crab's Ahoy!

Oh, she so crabby!