Sri Lanka, Hellloooooo

So firstly

1. I am now in sri lanka

and
2. Gallery article has been published!! whoopppp. Beni's illustration looks amazing, and the whole thing actually came together pretty well considering!

So.... Sri lanka is pretty similar to India really. To be brutally honest at the moment im not really enjoying sri lanka, i just want to leave. Its not very expensive but its not cheap as india. There are plenty of beaches but the weather is AWFUL, raining all day everyday, which gets you really down. Originally we thought it would be pretty easy to travel around but apparently there are a lot of places you can only reach by bus which makes our lives a little harder, as there isnt so many English speakers in less touristy areas so were basically stranded trying to find wherever the hell the landmark is that we wanted to see.

Yesterday we spent A WHOLE DAY travelling to go and see a raging blow hole. As in when the wave blows out of a hole in the rocks....yes yes yes it was really really unfascinating. Infact a total waste of 200 ruppees, and the tuk tuk ride. Wow i sound like im in a horrendous mood which perhaps could be half because i am very hungover today..... see yesterday was the publishing date for gallery and i went on the website all excited to check what my article looked like....only to find that infact it was a different writer who had a spot, not me. So i proceeded to shout and cry a bit and then got very very drunk. It was only this morning that i got a message from my dad telling me he had seen the article and it looked 'fantastic'. Well, it seems i must of been looking at the wrong month....

Anyways, sri lanka is very much like india except the women dress more western, with tshirts and long skirts. The men still wear the traditional indian sarong-style skirt and just a shirt or no shirt, whatever they feel like really. There are hardly any women in sair's and hardly any with decoration on their heads, infact i dont even think ive seen one woman with a nose ring or a red dot on her hairline to show marriage or forhead to show devotion to a certain God. The women dont wear an excess of jewelry like they did in india, to be honest, they are just a little bit more boring to look at really.

Maybe its because i love India, and it is a place i am sure i will return to a lot in my life.... its so so beautiful i cant even explain. Maybe thats why i am so unimpressed with sri lanka. Maybe i have to give it a few more days, i mean weve not even been here for a week yet.

One funny thing in this weather is that lots of the locals own pushbikes, and that is their main way of transport.... so in the rain you will generally see the husband sat on the seat, peddling, whilst his wife is lying across the bar at the front like a baby, holding an umbrella over both of their heads to try to shelter them from the weather. It is so so funny to see, and i think they know it too because normally they are giggling when they go past. Ive got to get a photo to show you, really its something special.

Weve taken to calling every man over the age of 40 'dad' and every woman over 40 'mum'. This helps us a lot as then the people tend to care about us more (its like an endearment term for them) and also its fucking hilarious for us because we just keep calling these random men dad and they dont even notice. Highly amusing for us. 'Dad, the zip in your tuk tuk doesnt work. Im getting rained on. Daaaaaddd can you help me' .....thats what niema came out with yesterday....it was beautiful.

Whoever said to me 'yes yes yes you will have no problem getting waxed in India, the women get rid of all of their hair on their bodies.' was HORREDNDOUSLY WRONG. I have experienced the most TRAUMATIC waxes of my life whilst in india, one lady who proceeded to consecutavly burn Jo, Me and Niema with her stupid hot wax in the space of half an hour, who also turned out to be the worlds WORST waxer. They cannot wax in india. At all. Seriously they cant do it. So weve had to resort to veet which is such a shame because the stuff smells like shit and our cheap little shit hole of a room doesnt have a drain that works.... so we all stink of hair removal cream.Its not nice but its better than risking the 3rd degree burns we suffered at the hands of the last waxer.