Serendipi doo dah

I have been able to share my room from time to time with several uninvited guests here in tropical Sri Lanka, and some of these fellows haven’t made it through the entirety of their intended stay thanks to various weapons at my disposal. A regular visitor in many rooms here has the scurrying gait of a large beetle and the battle-hardened, aggressive appearance of a cockroach - a weird hybrid of both these creatures. On the one occasion that the ‘mother’ of all big bugger beetle-cockroaches found him/herself in my room, it came second in a hard-fought battle with my industrial-strength vermine-killing spray, acquired in the household poisons section of the local Keells supermarket. In this and subsequent incidents the carcass of the evil-looking insect always seems to end up on its back, and eventually attracts ... read more

So the stereotype goes, traditional Jewish mothers dominate proceedings as far as nurturing their sons is concerned, even when the ‘child’ in question has gone beyond the apron string years and reached his 20s or 30s; in most cases, ‘no-one is ever quite good enough for my son’. In Sri Lanka, a similar story is apparent in the majority of cases as parents are very much in control of matters of the heart (those of their sons and daughters, that is). The common view appears to be that young people simply do not have the life experience nor the wisdom to select their life-long partner all on their own, but that their sagely parents are in a better position to make this decision on their behalf. There are exceptions to this policy, and at weekends young ... read more

Having joined my good pal Harsha here in Colombo and assisted in the delivery of a junior cricket coaching camp over four mornings in the Christmas holidays, I was rewarded with gifts not only from the gracious Harsha himself to say ‘thanks’ for coaching, but also from the unlikely-named Alan de Silva, one of the young boys who took part in the camp and who had a great time smacking a few cricket balls in the sunshine. It was rather humbling to be the recipient of a gift from one of the children on the camp, due to the relative lack of funds of the families who send along their off-spring in the holidays, and I was incredibly grateful for both presents (a snazzy watch from Harsh - he knew I was in need of one ... read more

My first Travelblog contribution begins in the UK while continuing my pre-flight checks, a day or two before venturing to the sub-continent. Polio…hepatitis…typhoid…yep, I am lucky, I’ve had all these. The immunisations for them, I mean. Previous tropical trips and their corresponding jabs have rendered this particular journey injection-free. Anti-malarial tablets have been acquired and they will be used, although some other Brits are reluctant to bother with them when visiting Sri Lanka. Having witnessed in the past a European traveller friend get cut down for a week with dreadful dengue fever which he picked up while volunteering in the now war-torn Trincomalee on the east coast, and in the process losing 20-odd kilos and suffering on a drip, my inclination as far as malaria tablets is to say ‘bugger it, I’ll take them’. Other crucial ... read more