Rip-Off Sri Lanka

Meditation can wait. Frustration cannot.

Even though I’m supposed to be calm and shanti after the meditation retreat, I decided that this is the place where I can enumerate my frustrations like on an extensive grocery list (better yet, a discarding list). Sri Lanka is the land that can fill up a whole tome of grocery lists of frustrations, frustrations that surface mostly when you’re spotted as being a foreigner, and trust me when I say that being anywhere over 1m50, with a non-dusky skin complexion, and with dreadlocks blending in might be considered somewhat extreme. And they’ll spot you faster than you can blink. When I say ‘they’ I mean everybody. You see, they’re not stupid, I’ll grant them that; they’re actually pretty smart and cunning and have been able to turn any remotely interesting thing on their island into a business opportunity (just like the Lonely Planet, but that will be the subject of a future post), attracting gullible tourists like a light bulb attracts moths. I’m not even going to enter the ‘hellotaximadam?’ on the list, even if it tends to get on my nerves when 10m away from my guesthouse not one, but all the taxi drivers on the road ask me if I want a ride; or that when I’m patiently waiting for the bus at the bus stand, two separate tuk tuk drivers offer their services or just simply say ‘come, I’ll take you’ (and they don’t even know where I want to be taken and probably don’t care)… I hold that it’s good to try your luck and, of course, business is business and there may well be credulous tourists around, so the better your people skills are, the greater the chances to get some work. I can deal with that and usually try the polite approach, amicably refusing their magnanimous offer (at some point I found out that sarcasm or derision have proven to go sky-high above their heads). No, these widespread Asian techniques cut no ice.

The seed of my revolt lies a lot deeper, implanted with the precision of a sharp dart in the bull’s-eye of the shattered tourist paradise that is Sri Lanka.

Sri Lanka is a beautiful country. Trust me! And it’s a country where tourism is in bloom but not so much for backpackers and ramblers as for the classic tourists; people who leave their daily jobs and lives for 2 or 3 weeks and look forward to a nice relaxing time either visiting historical sites and experiencing cultural aspects, or chilling back on beaches and hilly tea plantations, or both. They’re looking for Services, Wi-Fi and swimming pools and they’re prepared to pay the price; the tourist price; the price that is being asked. The overpriced price. Which means that the rest of us have to struggle to find the backpacking scene, the underground scene, the authentic scene.

Cheap accommodation? It’s either $15 per person in a not really run down place (but usually painted in a baby-pink or Paris green shade), or the shabby, shady dorm room or YMCA, which is hard to find and can use a good sweeping (or, in some cases, a big barrel of petrol and a match). Cheap food is easier but as soon as a place makes it in the Lonely Planet or on TripAdvisor, the prices shoot up like fireworks in a Maltese factory. And that’s only the least bothersome of issues.

The bulk of the problem lies with the attractions and, as luck would have it, everything is considered an attraction. Also, every attraction has a price. An overpriced price.

Anuradhapura is one of three very old, very important historical cities in the cultural triangle of Sri Lanka. And it wasn’t really surprising that the entrance ticket to the ruins and temples of the old city had a price on its head that locals would surely never afford (they don’t have to, as they have their own ‘local’ prices, but still): $25. The other attractions in the triangle range from a measly $10 for a temple in Kandy to an obscene $30 for the Rock Fortress at Sigiriya. And even where there’s no entrance ticket, you’ll have to pay the friendly-looking elderly Sri Lankan who accompanied you for a while to make sure you don’t get lost when trying to get to Ella Rock (as business is better not to maintain a proper pathway and thus let the poor, ignorant Westerners lose their way and squeak for some assistance in mid-trek).

And then there’s the Dowa Temple, a low-key, highly religious site, the actual reason why I started this vicious rant.

Yesterday was marked in the Sri Lankan calendar as Binara Full Moon Puya Day, an official Buddhist holiday, when people go to temples to pray and give offerings to Buddha. The monks chant (through speakers, no less) and pray and there’s a festive atmosphere all around, with parents guiding their barefooted toddlers to and fro the temple grounds, offering flowers, lighting oil candles and sitting in prayer all over the place. I walked through the temple grounds feeling quite peaceful, smiling to amused Sri Lankans and taking photos of the 4m high unfinished Buddha statue carved into the rock face. And as soon as I entered the temple, an elderly caretaker surrounded by pre-teen monks greeted me with ‘’Scuse me, madam, ticket here.’ I was more than willing to offer a small donation for the conservation of the temple and I even had my 20 rupees handy (it’s the usual amount I’ve seen locals donate), but the guy beckoned me to his desk and extracted a bunch of colourful tickets to hand one over to me. His mistake: after saying ‘ticket’ he also said ‘h’ndrd rupees’ so I took a closer look at the alleged ticket and even upside down I managed to read the bold black letters on the paper: DONATION. My 20 rupee’d hand stopped in mid-air and the guy and I locked stares and for a second there didn’t move, like two tomcats preparing to jump at each other’s jugular.

‘What?’ I asked. ‘Donation, no?’

‘H’ndrd rupees…’

But he probably realised his tiny tactical error and stared intently at the ticket stubs lying flawlessly in his hands. He then ignored my 20 rupees and waved me inside so I went in and looked around. Five minutes later when I emerged he suddenly found something else to do and hurriedly left his station, leaving the kid monks to negotiate a donation, which didn’t miraculously increase because of any sudden enlightenment on my part.