COLOMBO TO GALLE (Wednesday 18th of January)

I will no longer complain about biking or scootering in Toronto after witnessing how people drive here.  The rule here when behind the wheel is to concentrate to what is ahead, and try not to look at your hind mirror unless of course you are backing up.  By having all your attention directed  ahead, you can easily react to when people are stoping or turning without signalling; it’s a sort of a chain affect as the driver in front of you becomes your responsibility, and you become the responsibility of who ever is behind.  The best part is sitting in the front passenger seat as it’s nothing less than a roller coaster simulator.
My host Viren was advised to take the newly completed highway.  By North American standards it looks like a very well kept road, but here it is one of a kind.  The one major difference though is that there was absolutely no traffic; just bored cops seen from time to time.   After we got off the highway, we took village roads the remaining way dodging motorcycles, tractors, and school children.  This led us onto the infamous hippie trail with small coastal cosy hotels, and tourists on scooters.  I love that they would have a pizza place, and it would look exactly like pizza hut, but be called something like pizza house.  The other one was Burger King as Burger Shack.  After dropping two fellow Canadians Paul and Este (hopefully I spelled her name right) at a cosy little hotel on the water which was where Paul stayed at many years ago we were close to Galle; and I could see the old Portuguese fort in the distance.

SUN HOUSE

If you want to experience old colonial living then you definitely have to visit this house.  Google it if you get a chance, and you will see pictures of what european wealthy eccentrics did to escape from stress.  When we just got here we were greeted by a woman who’s name I don’t recall at the moment, but she had the most colourful get up, with a personality of a beloved teacher of the English Language.  You can just imagine her passionately reciting Shakespearian soliloquies, expressing each word with broad hand gestures.
We then ventured next door to meet Geoffrey who I believe is the owner of the estate, and the founder of the Galle Lit Fest.  He told me to be less formal and to chill as he sensed that I was little out of my element and needed to relax.  We had lunch with two British ladies, of whom one was a known writer.  She entertained us with a tragic story of one of her distant relatives who a long time ago was known as the an enchantress of Sri Lanka coming from Britain and breaking many hearts along the way.  The story goes that she died a day after she came back home, and her mother said it was from a broken heart (which in her words was a very lady like death), but in reality it was probably a serious opium addiction.

MID AFTERNOON CLUB HOPPING
After lunch Viren drove me around to clubs along the water and introduced me to everyone to make sure that I would be taken care of after he left.  We lined up two performances with one starting at sunset at a Arraya (another shitty spelling job) which is a mostly Dutch  attended cafe with lots of kids running around, and situated right on top of the beach.  This is where were before I performed I took a dive in the extremely warm ocean, and slightly cut my big toe on the rock.  The people here were what I call professional clubbers, but a little older than what you usually see and with families(absolutely warm Dutch vibes).  I had no idea of how many people move to Sri Lanka to spend their winters here, and not like the snowbirds that occupy Florida, but way hipper and ballsier.  These people come mostly from Holland, Ireland, Australia and England.
One place that really stood out was Aqua Hotel and club.  This is a Miami like place with amazing rooms, and subtle Luxury.  I will write more about it in my next entry as I will be playing there on Saturday night.

Tired as hell I got back to the Sun House around 9:30 to entertain the Lit Fest Authors with a little impact set, and then stayed up till 2 am with a new Sri Lankan friend who produced the film Perfume, and who spend most of his early years in Toronto; him and I shared an extremely similar outlook on culture and life.

(There are little bugs crawling into my lap top right now, and I’m on my third cup of coffee sitting at Serendipity cafe in the fort which has its on counterculture press company, and enviro conscious art on the walls.)

I had the luxury of staying at the Sun House that night, and I took a few pictures of the room.  To help me sleep I lit an incent, and after crawling through the mosquito netting I fell into deep sleep not to awake till late next morning.

Next Blog Post(sunday 22nd of January): The Galle Literary Festival