Tuesday 5th June 2012 - Colombo, Sri Lanka

As mentioned Anjali was not brought up in Sri Lanka and only came here to sell her grandmother's house and ended up staying in Sri Lanka to restore the house instead. She told me that she has been feeling very isolated here and has had a few problems with the local ladies and them hating on her, so she did some research on expat associations and found one that had a meeting today and so she wanted to go and check it out. I had always wondered what an expat was and apparently it means someone who has migrated to another country either to live or to work. We got up in the morning and had smoothies made from mangos fresh from the trees in her garden. We then jumped in a tuk tuk and headed to a hotel called the Taj which was such a grand looking hotel. We were directed into this room where there were lots of ladies of all nationalities. We registered and then were told to sit in an area in the corner as that was where the newcomers were going to meet with a lady to hear about the organisation. Everyone talked amongst themselves and asked each other's stories - nearly all of the ladies were wives of men working in the country and had no work so were obviously lonely.  The meeting was cool and the organisation seemed to offer a lot of different activities to keep these women occupied (the association is not just for women by the way but there was only one male member!). Anjali signed up to become a member.  After the meeting Anjali and I went to the Galle Face hotel for a drink (Anjali doesn't drink alcohol by the way) and shared a meze platter. We sat there for hours talking and then moved to another area in the hotel, right on the beach front, to watch the sunset. We were both really surprised when out of nowhere we saw one of the ladies from the expat meeting! When we all spotted eachother we had wide smiles as this lady had seemed very nice in the meeting and Anjali had spoken to her briefly about the restoration work that she was doing on her house. The lady's name was Frizay and she was with two men; her husband Rudey and his cousin Gihan. They all joined us at our table and we talked and laughed but the cousin Gihan, who was a huge guy (width wise) aged in maybe his 40years, kept trying to divert me over to a conversation with him and whilst I was taking photos of the sunset stood up and kept standing really close to me and putting his arm around me to position me. Disgusting. Then at one point I showed the group a photo I had taken of an old guy mounting a tree to get Toddy and this guy Gihan held my hand which had the phone in it with both of his hands to apparently get a better look. It was completely inappropriate and unneccessary and annoyed me a lot because I had spent a lot of my time with these people telling them about my bad experiences with the men here and this guy took note and now was troubling me in the same way! I pulled my hand away and passed him the phone. I tried hard to avoid any conversation with him from then. We had all been chilling talking for maybe an hour and a half and then Rudey paid the bill!!! Anjali and I had been there drinking before they came along and I had drank a lot of pimms both while they were with us and before so it was completely wrong for him to pay but he wouldn't hear of it. It made me feel awful. Rudey then asked if we all wanted to go to dinner together and so we headed to a restaurant called Lemon in their car. Lemon was on the same street as Anjali's favourite clothes store 'Avirate' so because Frizay had only been in the country for 3-weeks and didn't know the best places to shop Anjali wanted to show her the shop and the attached cafe. This was the worse thing that could have ever happened because I had restrained my shopacholic tendencies for all this time because I had kept away from the type of life I live in England but these ladies were pulling me right back into it! The clothes were amazing and my senses were going crazy as I looked around at all the beauty! Luckily the men were waiting so we had to leave but the shopping seed was now sewn in me :-(  Anjali had been talking about Lemon a lot and how she wanted to take me here so she was really happy when she made the suggestion to the group to come here and they all agreed. Lemon was located on the rooftop of a building and was just so beautiful. The lighting just made the place so magical and made everything look beautiful and created a warm yet crisp and modern ambiance.  The food was really good as well!! I ordered baby ribs which came with a side of rice and salad. It was nice and spicy and really well seasoned.  During dinner a conversation had come up about Facebook and Gihan asked to see my phone. Why did this random guy need to see my phone?! He then bought up Facebook (I signed out before I handed him the phone) and stared at my email address for a long time like he was trying to remember it. He then said he had this beautiful photo he wanted to show me and that I should add him on Facebook there and then. What could I do because he was watching! I added him and then after we left I cancelled the request!  Again though, Rudey took the damn bill. As explained before I could never afford to just go and take a bill like that but I would at least like to go Dutch so I am paying my way.  Rudey and Frizay were so lovely though. Rudey was Sri Lankan and Frizay was Pakistani and they had lived in London for most of their lives in Notting hill. Rudey's work meant that they had to move around a lot though - they had come to Sri Lanka from Hong Kong. Frizay was a bit of a diva though and couldn't go anywhere without air-conditioning. She was absolutely lovely though and so funny.  After dinner Rudey dropped me and Anjali back home. Gihan got out of the car to say goodbye and basically cornered me and blocked my route into the gate so I walked around him - he then touched my hair and flower and said "beautiful". Yuk! Once inside the house I told Anjali what he had done throughout the day-she apologised that she hadn't noticed and then we stayed up until 5am talking!  I had never felt more lucky because not only had this wonderful lady taken me into her home and introduced me to all these beautiful places, she also said that she would love to have me working on her projects with her. The next project was in the Gaza Strip and was to develop sustainable farming. It sounded amazing and would be exactly the kind of work that I would want to do. Anjali said I could be based anywhere in the world as long as I hit the deadlines and could fly in and out as needed. Also during dinner Rudey had told Anjali that a fantastic idea for her house would be to turn it into a hotel - Anjali loved the idea and was also saying that on the side of the projects I could manage the hotel. Managing a hotel was not my dream but it would allow me to be based in Sri Lanka and still get money when there were no projects. Everything was all just talk at the moment so although inside I am screaming like a little girl at a dream come true, I cannot get ahead of myself I see something tangible.  Also Anjali and I spoke about travelling around the rest of Sri Lanka together. She seemed really up for it. I still needed to do the whole of the south coast and the hill country. Also I really wanted to do whale and dolphin watching - I had wanted to do it in Trincomalee but the water was quite rough towards the end of my stay so I am thinking to go back there when the water calms.  All in all it was a great day :-)