Frederick, our mature driver for the first week of our tour, arrived to collect us in his a/c car and under instructions from Niluk was told to look after us. Leaving the main part of Negombo, Frederick invited us to his home for tea. Yvonne is never one to miss a tea opportunity and we accepted. Backing into his drive we saw from outside, a very run down home and untended gardens. Stepping inside we were greeted by his elderly sister, Freeda who spoke impeccable English and they invited us to sit in the lounge area. It was stiflingly hot inside the house with no signs of fans let alone a/c. The dark room had a coffee table and very old settee and chairs with a 60’s sideboard covered in family photos which Freeda took us through one by one, proudly showing us her two sons, telling us about their degrees and how they were living in Melbourne, Australia under a government economic migrant scheme. She became a little teary when she explained she knew they wouldn’t come back to Sri Lanka now and how isolated she felt. It appeared Frederick her brother, and his wife lived with her in what we thought was infact her house.
We had a good conversation about our travels, life in England and she took great pride in teaching us the basics of Hello, Goodbye, Thank you etc. and we gave her a laugh or two with our appalling pronunciations. Then Frederick appeared with tea in the best china and ginger nut and custard cream biscuits. What a treat! Yvonne wondered if Glenn was picking up her looks of ‘don’t eat all of them Glenn’ as he dunked one after another. Frederick was unable to follow much of the conversation and was keen to go and then surprised us as we left by introducing his wife, much younger than himself, who had been hiding in the back of the house. Apparently they had had an argument the previous night and she was too shy to say hello. Yvonne had wondered about Frederick making the tea and biscuits and it was obvious now his wife had done this.
He then drove us up the west coast in a fairly controlled erratic way, overtaking an overtaking vehicle but always making it, apparently all standard Sri Lankan driving technique. We passed through fairly non descript towns stopping only for a brief visit to a Hindu temple on the main road. As Yvonne was wearing shorts she deemed these unsuitable for entering the grounds, leaving Glenn to hot foot it (and the ground was extremely hot) around the building but not entering inside the temple. The place was fairly busy with locals as it was still a public holiday and many were dressed in very colourful and exquisite outfits.
Slipping back in the a/c car we made it to our next destination, Kalpitiya, a world renowned kite surfing area where we had booked a couple of days on a fairly remote beach villa complex anticipating sea breezes to keep us cool. Unfortunately for Frederick, as this town is mainly Muslim, we arrived just as Jumu’ah, noon Friday prayers were starting and he was unable to find anyone either willing or able to help him with the location of the villas. He was hailing tuk tuk drivers or anyone on the street to help but with little success. Then we suggested he phoned the place and following what looked and sounded like a fruitful conversation we went back on a road we’d already been up and down a couple of times before. Eventually, we arrived having to unlock high security gates ourselves and drove up a dusty path arriving at a very basic looking ‘complex’. We spotted 3 people huddled in a shady spot guessing these were staff but they didn’t exactly leap up to welcome us. As we approached them and confirmed our reservation it all felt a little uncomfortable and we soon realised we were indeed a surprise to them. No matter, they lead us to a dingey double room which clearly didn’t match the photos seen on the booking site and with the heat inside so unbearable we soon noticed there was no a/c. We then spotted what looked like the villa we thought we had booked only to see someone else's swim gear and shoes outside. We then tried to resolve the situation with the chef/come manger who really didn’t seem bothered about helping with promises of the owner was coming back in from snorkelling and we could speak to her. Frederick sat quietly and had lunch whilst Glenn and Yvonne chewed over what to do. Finally we made our minds up to leave just as someone appeared from the sea. It was now decided, we were leaving and would make our way to what would have been our next destination, Anuradhapura, the Sacred Cities. Frederick appeared happy to drive for further 3-4 hours and we left with no objection from the owner or manager.
We now had to find a hotel for a couple of nights preferably in Anuradhapura and stopping at a tea rest room (a legacy from the english traveller) with good, old fashioned settees and chairs we sipped cold ginger beer and green tea under a wobbly and decrepit ceiling fan. As the only westerners in here amongst the locals, we caused a bit of a stir, especially when Glenn logged into the laptop and asked for the wifi password. In under a couple of minutes we selected a decent looking hotel and booked it as Frederick hovered and made gestures we needed to get on our way muttering, all booked in the Milano, yes? This is a favourite hotel used by drivers who get free lodging and food. We were booked in there, but in two days time with no availability for the next two nights. No, Frederick, no rooms. Yeah, he’d understood us.
As we entered the city limits Frederick confirmed again, Milano, yes? And we had some trouble getting through to him, no not the Milano, this one instead….And Glenn opened up the laptop to show him the address but was unable to retrieve the booking details.
Without going into all the details, the next couple of hours were extremely frustrating for all three of us. Heavy downpours, getting dark, no streets signs, chasing wifi and then to top it all Booking.com phoning us saying we couldn’t use the hotel tonight due to water issues there and the booking was cancelled. Oh great and now nowhere to stay. Eventually, after lots of toing and froing and seeing really, really crappy rooms, we arrived somewhere in the dark at 7.15pm all three of us grumpy, hot, tired and hungry. We managed to secure Frederick a room and breakfast in a nearby homestay as our small homestay was now fully booked. The owner kindly organised a delivery of ‘we’ll eat anything’ including a meal for Frederick. He was clearly very unhappy with us and refused the dinner when it arrived and left saying call me in morning when ready.
After our dinner of fried rice, hmm, just fried rice, we reflected on the disasters of the day with one thing leading to another and laughed it off saying the day hadn’t turned out too bad really, we all had a bed and hot shower somewhere. Unfortunately we were both unhappy with Fredericks behaviour and decided to sleep on it. Things always look better in the morning.
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| Freeda ad Frederick |
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| The Disneyesque temple |
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| Yvonne enjoys the rest house |
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