Thursday 24th May 2012 - Nilaveli, Sri Lanka

I felt rough as hell this morning from the beer so although Mohan told me he was coming to meet me at 9am, I sent him a message saying not to come. I eventually told him to come at about 11am. It was weird what this relationship had become. Mohan insisted on dropping me everywhere but didn't want money and I always ended up in the back of the tuk tuk while he went about his errands. He told me he hadn't been working for the passed 3days since I was here because he wants to see me. He was a really cool guy though and always laughed out loud when men on the streets or in passing vehicles saw me and started shouting at me to get my attention. Last night Mohan and I had agreed to go to the waterpark but by the time we met he had to stay in the area to pick up the school kids. I ended up going in the tuk tuk with him to get petrol in Trincomalee and then driving back to pick up the kids again. The kids were so excited when they saw me in the tuk tuk again and this time the loud girl wanted to sit on my lap. I was dropped off on the rounds and then headed to the beach. The beach was not nice today as the wind was so strong, making the sand blow everywhere, and the current quite strong. I just went and chilled on the hotel grounds on a sun lounger. I ate dinner at the hotel in the evening - prawn curry with rice. The prawns were huge but who wants to put their fingers in boiling hot curry to remove the shells!!? Also despite the fact that the flavour of the curry was really nice, I was really put off because they had removed the poo from the prawn also. Nasty! I sat there with a fork scraping it out.  The manager asked if I liked the food but I told him that it was not good that firstly the whole shell is still on (but that is down to preference i guess) and secondly that they didn't slice the shell to remove the poo. I could also tell that the prawns were not fresh and had been frozen but I kept that one to myself as they were a really quiet hotel with few guests meaning that buying fresh would result in them having to throw a lot away.  After my food I sat outside my room listening to music when the owner of the place came and sat next to me and we spoke for hours. He was a nice man. He told me of the times he had spent in England and reminisced on Marks and Spencers and their amazing St Michael's Byron shirts.  We also spoke about the war in Sri Lanka and the effect on his hotel - apparently the hotel had to close for thirty years. At first he had people guarding the hotel but the proximity of the war zone was too close for comfort so they had to leave - resulting in people looting everything from the hotel. Then when it was safe to return the tsunami happened and destroyed the hotel. When I realised he owned the place I just asked him to confirm that it was the case and he humbly replied "No god is the owner as he can take it from at anytime - I just look after the place".  I thought this was a sad reality but it was a great attitude to have and would prevent pain. He was Muslim but these words rung very closely to the Buddhist teachings of non-attachment to avoid suffering. We then got onto religion and the fact that religions are all the same and that people of each faith are all on different roads to the same destination but they don't realise. They listen to what has been told to them about different religions but don't try to find out for themselves by reading about the different teachings. I really enjoyed my talk with him and went to sleep feeling refreshed.