Getting to know the place....

My new home has welcomed me very kindly!

The house was build by a British tea farmer family around 100 years ago. Around 1100 meters high in the mountains, it belongs to the village of Diyathalawa. There is huge Eucalyptus trees everywhere and birds like beos and the sri lankan kuckuck.

28 local people work here, in the kitchen, service, office, arjuvedic treatment building, the garden and so on. All are extremely sweet: "Madame has very nice hair!"

And of course, Madame does not need to make her bed, cook, wash her clothes or carry her bags!

I went to the village and met the local grocery dealer and the hair dresser, the police, the post man and the lady tailor. This boy with the funny build shop is selling fried pastry (?).

The weather is almost like at home, I guess: Rain and rain and sometimes a little sun. It feels really cosy. And at 6 pm it is night! Bedtime is around 9 pm and around 5.30 am I get up. The buddhist monks are singing from 5 to 6 am anyways. And at 6 am the Hindi priests start. The moslems sing when ever they want, but not so often...
 

Good Morning Sri Lanka

Good Morning Sri Lanka.
My neighbour in the airplane is a woman from Estonia. She is wearing a very pink shirt but she is not talking much. I start to read my "Wallander" Krimi book. Really really bad music while taking off: Kelly Clarkson. This girl is not from Sri Lanka! Then the stewardesses in turquoise-peacock-sari-dresses serve us very nice food. Rice and curry. Then nothing happens. I go on with my book, which I finish by the end of the 9 hours flight. Before landing: more rice and curry. While landing: Same music again. But this time really loud! This is holidays!

Entering the country. I have been here before, but still- the heat and the humidity and the no-sleep make me feel a little dizzy. All I have to do is  follow the instructions that Mr. Fischer gave me. Go get the luggage, go to the Cinnamon Lakeside Hotel corner, find my name on a list, the driver is coming, he takes me to the taxi that will drive me to the hotel where I will meet my aryuvedic friends. As I sit I think: Oh, the wheel is on the wrong side! But then I remember why this is ok.
I get to the hotel by 3 am which is 6.30 am local time. The sun is rising, Colombo city is awaking slowly. I can smell the city and feel the warm humid air and hear the sounds of the cars and tuktuks and trashy busses and the birds and I feel like coming home. I feel glad I have been here before.
I meet the yogateacher Sirkka in her room. She is wearing a white dress and she looks very fresh. Not like me. That's why I go down to the basement to the swimming pool. The pool is quite fancy. It is just next to a beautiful lake with cormoranes and pelicans. The morning is still very young. I understand why that the name Cinnamon Lakeside Hotel makes sense. Swimming in the pool, the hotel boy thinks I am Australian. But I am not. And I cannot go on swimming, I am too tired. Sleeping on the chairs maybe. Hmm.
At 9 am I give up- too hot. Next brilliant idea is: Breakfast. Breakfast turns out to be a crazy place. I walk around the food and feel like everybody must see that I usually don't stay in hotels. I stick with papaya and yoghurt. But then there is Dhal and coconut sambal. And then there is also Sri Lankan herbal soup. Nice mix. I think that my senses are anyways not yet functioning. And now I am here in the "Business canter" in the 6th floor deciding to write a blog about my trip, wondering whether this first post will be the longest post. I hope not.
Sirkka has informed me that at noon we will go "home" which means to Greystones Villa.
I don't know that place that will be my home for the next six weeks. But I like the idea of having a place I can call home.