Wednesday 13th June 2012 - Colombo, Sri Lanka

Today was supposed to be the day that I watched my first cricket match! Pakistan Vs Sri Lanka third ODI at the Premadasa stadium.  Shiran, his girlfriend and his two friends went and bought the tickets in the morning for Rs500; we would be seated in block C upper level.  We all then met at the Dutch Hospital at around 12.30pm at the pub there to have drinks before heading to the match.  We all shared a three litre beer tap and ate some food and then jumped in tuks tuks to take us to the match. It started raining on the way there but luckily stopped once we got inside the Premadasa stadium.  The stadium was pretty empty but the atmosphere was amazing. There was music being blasted through the speakers, people were blowing horns and wearing stickers on their faces, some even painted their face. I bought a sticker and stuck it on my left cheek.  We got beers and ice creams and things were just warming up when a dark cloud appeared above the stadium. About 50 guys started pulling covers over the pitch but then the rain came down hard. It calmed down into drizzle but continued that way for the rest of the day. Gayan had planned to come to watch the rest of the game once he finished work at 7pm but as soon as he arrived the match was called off after literally just 10minutes of play for the whole day! Today was the first time I met Shiran's girlfriend, Razi. I had heard lots of nice things about her and knew that Shiran loved her a lot and that she was very understanding of mine and Shiran's friendship. However the two of them had spent the whole day arguing resulting in one of them walking away with the other chasing after them and then they would come back and then do the same thing! Throughout the day I had a few issues with men whistling and hollering at me whenever I walked to get beers or went to the toilet and at one point some bastard boys followed me into the toilet but I shouted at them and they apologised and left. However when we were leaving and walking down the stairs through the crowds some stupid little kid decided to rub passed me and touch my bum. The first time I thought it might have been accident but when it happened a second time I cussed out loud and Gayan went up to the kid and confronted him. The kid's posse all tried to get involved causing Shiran to then start getting angry. Gayan calmed the situation and then had me walking in the middle of all of them. I felt like they were all my body guards and felt really bad that because of me they were all getting into drama that wouldn't happen under normal circumstances. They were all really cool though and cussed the men calling them animals and told me that it made them ashamed to be Sri Lankan to see the men acting this way.  Shiran, Razi and Shiran's two friends all went in one direction and Gayan and I headed to the Galle Face (where we had drank Arrack a few weeks before) and sat on a bench drinking Rum and Coke from plastic cups taken from the cricket game.  Gayan was super protective and caring of me and walked me to the toilet when I needed to go and was ready to confront the two toilet attendants when I informed him that they had also followed me into the toilet! I couldn't believe it. They had said 'hello, hello, hello' in a pervy way when I walked passed them into the ladies so I said goodbye and walked into the cubicle and closed the door. I then realised that the cubicle had a window that looked straight out onto where the men were standing so they could have got on a chair and looked in if they wanted so I opened my cubicle door to go into another one and the two men (who must have been in their 60s) were standing at the doorway to the ladies looking in. I shouted at them to go away and they apologised stepping backwards and closing the door behind them. What frikin perverts. Were they honestly expecting me to invite them in?! Gayan and I were chilling for maybe two hours and talking about everything as usual with a lot of time spent talking about Hugh before we went our separate ways.  I was in a tuk tuk when the police pulled us over asking to see my I.D. I told them I was a tourist so I don't have I.D. There were three men all staring at me like a piece of meat. They asked for my passport. I told them I didn't have my passport. They asked if I had a resident visa. I explained that I was a tourist on a tourist visa. They asked where I was staying. I told them with a friend in Colombo 7. They again said they needed to see I.D and that I should carry it with me. I told them that they must be crazy if they think I am going to carry my passport around only for it to get stolen and for me to be stranded. One of the policemen then stared at me like Hannibal Lector and I am honestly surprised there wasn't dribble running from his mouth and said "I am going to have to arrest you". I asked if he was serious and then one other officers said something to the tuk tuk driver and we were on our way again. I had no idea what just happened but I do know that usually they only ask the tuk tuk drivers for their I.D when going into high risk areas so it was bizarre that I was being asked in the first place. The tuk tuk driver said they were corrupt. He said some police are good and some are bad and these guys were bad. I got back to Anjali's and told her what happened and she just shrugged it off so I just went to bed.