Day 10

We had a long day ahead of us and had to leave at 7 am, which meant wake up calls were scheduled at 5.30 am! Luckily, I had earned enough trust in this matter to convince Sammy and Janneke, that I could make 7 with a wakeup call at 6. After a quick breakfast, where we had another great example of the creativity in the English spelling of the names of dishes in this country (sasjas for saucage), and a quick motion-sickness tablet that I received from a kind person in our group (Samantika), we took off.

It was a long drive with only a few occasional stops at a viewpoint or waterfall. During the drive Janneke informed us about the official calculations that they have to determine the tip for the guide, the driver and the buss-boy. The role of the buss-boy was not quite clear, it seems to be another one of those ‘jobs’ that are needed to keep people off the streets. The boy looked like he was 17 and for that age it seemed to be quite decent ‘job’, but when we talked to him it turned out he was 27 already. His main task was to make sure that the small fridge in the buss was filled with bottles of water and he would get a small share of what we paid for it. In addition to that he helped us get off the bus and safely cross the street when necessary, he would take care of our luggage, he’d be the eyes of the driver on the left side of the buss on bendy roads and he took care of the offerings required for our safe journey throughout the trip. Janneke asked who we would designate to count the money and hand it over to them during the coffee break and then a few people were very quick to designate me to be that person.

Of course I do not have difficulties coming up with a speech on the spot, so three was doable as well. I thanked Sammy first and as he had shown us during the trip how to treat people that are you friend in Sri Lanka, I felt obliged to show him how we thank friends in Holland; with three kisses on the cheeks, which he was familiar with already. As the driver and buss-boy did not understand much English, I asked Sammy to already warn them about the three kisses coming their way and then he did a simultaneous translation of my little speech for them. These guys were clearly a lot less familiar with the kisses and especially the poor driver had no idea how to behave in this circumstance.

Lunch was already very late, but very nice though. After this we had a quick tour in the fortress of Galle, which has been ruled by the Portuguese, Dutch and British and as I understand has recently been turned into a very hip area with investments from the Dutch. As some people in our group had booked an upgrade for the last few nights of the trip in resorts that were still a long drive away, the group that was going to stay in Galle was taken to their beachside hotel quickly. The un-upgraded hotel was quite nice already in my opinion, although the close proximity to the sea and the strong winds did make everything a bit damp. With the remaining group we agreed to go for a drink before diner and then dine together. Since we did not have the all-inclusive wristband, but only the diner included wrist band, we had to pay for the drinks ourselves and the system here was the same as everywhere. The person serving guests does not really handle money. Instead, if you want to pay you ask this person for the bill and he will go tell the cashier to make the bill that he then brings over to the guest. The guest then gives the money which the waiter will bring back to the cashier who will count the money and give the waiter the change that he will then hand over to the guest. Alternatively the guest can write the room number on the bill and sign it to be paid at the front desk upon checkout. Either way, this process would be very slow and getting the attention of a waiter to ask for the bill was often difficult. So when we walked from the drinking area to the dining area, I had forgotten to ask for and sign the bill for my cocktail. You’d think they would just put that bill at the reception for you to pay upon leaving, however I was woken by very urgent and insistent knocking on my door while I was asleep already, only to find the waiter there with the bill I still needed to sign. I was annoyed and told him that there was no need to wake me for this and that it could have waited till the next day, but I don’t think he spoke English well enough to understand and he just smiled and nodded politely saying ‘thank you’.