Bye Sri Lanka, Hello India
(vero;2018-Oct-31)
We flew from Colombo to Mumbai. All went very smoothly after we landed: immigration, bag delivery, we walked out of the airport in no time and found easily a tuk-tuk to Andheri, the nearest train station (57 Rs). We got a 2nd class ticket to Church Gate and off we went with the first halting train.
It was exhilarating to be back in India and from the very first moment in the tuk-tuk we knew what we had missed in Sri Lanka: the people, the colours, the noise, the craziness of it all.
This became even more obvious when back home I started sifting through our pictures: the collection of thumbnails for Sri Lanka was mostly green with much landscape, many monuments, but very few people. Our Indian pictures in contrast were colourful, showing many scenes with people in them, many portraits, a real difference.
After two days in Mumbai we felt more of a connection to India and its people than we did after three weeks in Sri Lanka which is a shame as one of the most cherished aspects of travelling for us is intermingling with the locals. Once back home, we will often forget a temple but will fondly remember that bus ride with locals or this conversation in a park.
In Sri Lanka we were a bit reminded of Thailand where everybody is smiling but where we never got friendly with the locals in the way we did in other countries. We always felt a distance, everything being nice on the surface but with no way to break through.
Sri Lankans are friendly for sure, but somehow we mostly got in contact with people involved in the tourism trade, so it is no wonder as this is their bread and butter. We found it difficult to interact with everyday people; we made a point of travelling 3rd class in trains or ordinary buses, of patronising local eateries instead of eating in our guest house but there was no spark to ignite a conversation, no curiosity, just shyness, indifference and smiles. Of course, there is the language barrier, English not being widely spoken but this was never an issue in many countries we travelled before like Syria, Cambodia, Nepal, Myanmar, you name it and in those countries we somehow always managed to “speak with our hands”, smile and make ourselves understood, experiencing warm human moments with the people of our host country. But nothing of the sort happened in Sri Lanka and already in the country, we wondered why.
It has surely to do with the nature of the people, maybe the religion, Sri Lankans like Thais are mostly Buddhists, but on the other side, we did not have this feeling in Myanmar or Cambodia. Maybe there are also simply too many tourists around. We felt that tourists are often kept apart in bubble-like colonies, in the guest houses and hotels of the coast of course, but also in Ella or Sigiriya, keeping the local life well separated from the tourist bustle.
An other point is that Sri Lanka is still a very rural society. There are hardly any big towns in the country, people seem to live in closed-knit communities, something we could feel strongly on the ground. Sometimes I caught myself thinking that they were living the right way: seemingly closely bound to their home, respectful of religion and traditions, it was as if (except in Colombo) the modern world had slowed down and not yet “polluted” them. This might also be because the troubled civil war is still present in people's minds and the country has a lot to catch up. Maybe also because of the state of emergency which was in place during our stay and showed that there is still a lot of aggressive potential between the different communities of the country?
India is of course a complete different story and this is why, despite the heavy pollution, the extreme poverty of some parts of the population, we love this country so much. Incredible India where everything is possible. We love the country, its history and culture, its people, their openness, their willingness to interact, being students or office workers with good English or market vendors and farmers with whom we always somehow manage to communicate and establish a bond.
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$updated from: Blog.htxt Mon 04 Mar 2024 16:04:40 trvl2 (By Vero and Thomas Lauer)$