News From The Front

Convenient, but the data roaming fees are a bitch

Aaaah life on the road! Now partnered up with my good buddy and famous singer songwriter Shwa, I have a renewed sense of travel lust and adventure. Finally around another English speaker with a twisted sense of humor and little to no sense of propriety, the jokes and the Tiger beer have flown freely. Amazingly though, I've had almost no contact with internets capable technology in like a week.  And you know what? I haven't missed it.

Sure, my fantasy football team tanked in the finals, resulting in another year of bragging rights for my d-bag friends who beat me in fake sports. And of course, I've failed miserably to keep in touch with my brother Mike who along with his wifey wife Anna recently gave birth to my newly circumcised nephew Noah. But worst of all I've forsaken you, my darling blog followers.

For this I feel great shame...but to be totally honest I really don't miss feeling constantly connected. I tossed the b-berry when I crapped all over my career and left Big Law, and as a money saving measure I put my iPhone contract on hold whilst in Asia. This leaves me with zero in terms of mobile access points. Since I left the desk a week or so ago, without actively seeking out an internet cafe I'm flying without a net out here. You guys, it's totally awesome. At first I missed being able to check on HuffPo every thirteen minutes to see my favorite pop politics goings-on and I was a bit salty about missing football for the last two weeks, but the country is still in free fall and the Jets still blow even without me keeping my watchful Firefox vigil.

There are some drawbacks though. Productivity is waaaaay down. Like zero. Basically the most constructive thing I've done in the past seven days was flirt awkwardly with four American school teachers working in Korea, and to be entirely fair Shwa actually did most of the heavy lifting to set me up the whole time. Since I really don't know when I'll be forcing myself to set aside the twenty minutes of sobriety and focus to get another post up in the next few days, I'd at least like to wish everyone a slightly belated merry xmas and a slightly premature happy new years! For all of you still tied to a desk or at least somewhat engaged in reality (unlike myself), do yourself a favor and shut off your phones for your annular booze fest. Toss your blackberries onto the yule log and stand the f back, cause those fumes, much like work/life balance, is sure to be toxic. Even if it's only for 12 hours or so, I hope you all get to chill chill like I have been for the past few days.

Season Two!

You guys, for reals, can you believe it? By the time you read this, I will be heading to the airport and jetting out from Sri Lanka. Unbelievably, I've survived the first leg of my journey through the zaniness of South Asia. There have been some highlights - I know I'll never forget the food. Oh my lord do I love the food. There have been some low lights - from rat attacks to crushing loneliness. But I set out to change my life by leaving behind the corporate world and getting some human rights advocacy experience, all while throwing myself into the wild wild East and sobering up if at all possible.

So far, so good.

But fear not, friends and loved ones who I've guilted into reading along! The adventure continues! In fact, if anything, I'll be upping the ante to keep your attentions focused squarely on my ugly mug. This of this like Season Two of Dear Lonely Planet...you get to follow the characters you've come to know and love as they get themselves involved with increasingly less believable scenarios, plot twists and love triangles. The parties will be wilder (by definition, because there were no parties in Sri Lanka)! The awkwardness will be heightened (as I try to order lactose free food in broken French)! And we're even going to have some famous guest appearances!

That's right, my good friend and winner of American University's 24-hour film festival 2003, Joshua "Shwa" Losben has joined me to rock the rest of Asia in style! After eating our way through the serendib isle, Shwa and I will be dropping tires in Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia and adventuring for two straight weeks. Look forward to updates from the road as two uppity New York Hebrews spend Christmas in a predominantly Muslim country, trek through the jungle with our Cannon powershots and show off our sweet sweet abdominals on the beaches of Langkawai. There's gonna be laughs, probably some tears and no shortage of cheap arrack.

And if I have any say in the matter, I'll try to make sure there's a rat in my next apartment. Wouldn't want to get too lonely out Europe way.

Beyond Here, There Be Dragons

Whaddya mean there's no wi-fi?

Venturing outside of your comfort zone can be scary. Venturing outside of your comfort zone and into a war zone, however, can be slightly scarier. Even I'm not quite so dedicated to adventuring as to wander into an active military presence, so instead I opted for a passive one during last weekend's trip to Sri Lanka's Northern Province.

After a troublesome six or so attempts to get the necessary travel documents in order, I took a quick hop skip and jump (over land mines and flood areas) to Tamil country to check out what was going on up there. I had been suuuuper excited about this trip for the past few weeks and couldn't wait to get rolling. In my mind, I had painted the area to be a completely distraught bombed out distress zone with an entirely divergent culture and population from the rest of the island.

I was, quite pleasantly, proven to be completely wrong in my assumptions. While its true that the areas up top there are dotted by a relatively constant military presence and some destroyed remnants of buildings and headless statues, stolid reminders of the thirty year civil war that ravaged this rain-soaked region, the people were incredibly friendly and welcoming. What's more, they were incredibly Sri Lankan. My fears of danger were allayed right quick and replaced with the usual travel woes of intermittent internet and insanely slow lunch service. Once it arrived, the food was stellar as always and the service unbelievably congenial. Thanks to its out of the way location, the area was even free of touts and grifters and my movement was entirely unhindered by scams for a change.

The Indian businessman I spoke to briefly while waiting for the return trip to the airport this morning said that in his opinion, two more years of development were needed to turn the area into a viable tourist and business location. In my opinion though there's no reason to wait...yes it's a little unnerving to have 15 machine guns pointed in your general direction at every street corner, but it was incredible to see a town so recently recovered from violence and slowly rebuilding.

And it's not everyday you get to watch a cow wander through a mine field.

There Are No Words...

Jeez Eric, even the caption department thinks this is too esoteric...

Before departing the home front for my new life in Sri Lanka, I spent a bit of time boning up on the local lingo in the hopes of making a smoother transition to life in the Indian Ocean. For a mere $19.99, I was able to purchase a Learn Sinhala! DVD, the only one of its kind on Amazon, and I got down to business. After just a few shorts weeks of rigorous study, I had learned nothing.

Such ignorance continues to this day. I've been here for over two months and I think I can say maybe four words in the native tongue. I of course blame this almost entirely on the unmitigated disaster that was the Learn Sinhala! DVD (you're better off just stringing together random syllables) and to a much smaller degree upon my incredible inability to hear things properly. When I lived in Peru, I had a bear of a time understanding the Spanish despite years of training. Hell I couldn't even understand the English when I lived in London. Add in the fact that the alphabet and grammar here are entirely distinct from my Western sensibilities and you have yourself one lost little human rights attorney.

So it doesn't surprise me when waiters laugh at my feeble attempts at pleases and thank yous. No, what bothers me way more is that they can't even decipher the few English words we speak in common. And I don't mean "specious" or "verisimilitude". I mean "fish" and "hello".

This problem has plagued me since my earliest travels...something about my accent makes it impossible for people to know what the hell I'm talking about. Just the other day, I hopped a tuk tuk to enjoy a nice xmas drink on the Mount Lavinia Hotel veranda in the blustery 80 degree chill and said to the driver, "Mount Lavinia". He stared. Ok, I'll use a little accent. "MohntLaveeneya". The stare continued. This went on through six more iterations of the same interaction until finally he said, "Ooooh, MohntLaveeneya!" Odd...sounded just like what I said. "800 is ok," I inquired, remembering always to negotiate before starting the puttering engine. He looked appalled and glared at me, jaw agape. What anger! It took about four more iterations of exchange to realize he thought I said 300, which of course everyone knows sounds just like 800.

Look, I get it, I sound like an obnoxious New Yorker no matter how hard I try to hide it. My trashy Long Island accent once led an otherwise amicable ex-girlfriend to remark that it made me "sound like a fucking animal." Fair enough, I suppose. But I'm trying here people...and it's just not working.

Can't Fight The Skeeters

"The best blood will at some point get into a fool or a mosquito."

Austin O'Malley

Mosquitoes crave the blood of Hebrews. There's no denying this fact. Something about our delicious Semitic spiciness converts our veins into insect ambrosia. And I, my friends, have become a kosher buffet.

My battle with the winged residents that replicate faster than I can swat them into oblivion has been hard fought, with gains measured in inches, not miles. At first my bedroom was straight up skeeter territory, owing mostly to the proximity of the open well we have in the downstairs office area of my house. This is a standard Sri Lankan design style, reminiscent of a time when water was drawn from your own personal well dug deep into the foundation of your home. Along with the life-providing dihydrogen oxide, however, it also happens to be a well-populated mosquito breeding ground.

I'm running out of places to hide. When I take a shower they're there, having flown in through the window. When I go to the bathroom, I live in constant fear that my precious man parts will be laid to waste by their insatiable blood lust. But worst of all, when I sleep...oh heaven save me when I sleep...with my defenses relaxed, the little buggers go to town. My face is more ripped up than that of a 14-year-old proactiv addict. 

Now I know what you're going to say - get a net, dumbass. And you're probably right, I should've gotten a net, but frankly I finally got the mosquito problem under control until just recently. With a daily regimen of DEET-to-doorway application and hermetically sealing the clean air in my room, I was able to trap the beautiful air conditioned environment as was...with the minimally invasive side effect of two months of man smell being stuck in here too. It's ok though, I don't ever entertain so whatevs.

My first application was treacherous. As I sprayed the bug-b-gone up on the top the door jam, I smiled expectantly, ready to see the fruits of my labors in action. Of course, I forgot that gravity still works in Sri Lanka and I got a face full of 30%-by-volume poison mist in my eyes and mouth. This stung my mucous membranes as much as my pride, but it worked like a charm for a while. Now the mosquitoes are back in force, and I think the dog dragged in some kind of man-eating aphids that have begun swarming my desk area and generally bothering the hell out of me.

The good news is that I'm dealing with the clouds of biting death way better than I usually do. Maybe I can get out of this being a bit more resistant to skeeter attack. And besides, it's not like this is a malaria or a dengue zone or anything.

Wait, it is a dengue zone? Well crap.

Your Money's No Good Here

Easiest way to remember that your pin code is 1 - 1

At one time, ATMs were magical devices that helped rich people stop having to go to the drive-through at their local S&L every time they needed more money for lithium to cope with the markets crashing. They inspired magical commercials of well-dressed white travelers in far away lands without a hope of rescue finding their path home with the help of the local children, dragging the white folk to a machine that they themselves could not access because they had no funds. Access, ability and fortune at your finger tips.  In theory, anyways.

Sri Lankan ATMs apparently don't want me to get any of my filthy Western money into their streams of commerce. When I first got to town, I picked up some cash at the airport by changing over US dollars, so I was able to survive for a few weeks without hitting the cash machine. After blowing most of my stash on roti and Sprite, I finally trekked down the road to the local Nation's Trust Bank outlet to stock up. I was inspired by the Trust in the name and though to myself, "what an easy experience this will be. I am assured to have it all go well and there shall not be bumps in the road."

I responded swiftly when the machine suggested I insert my card into it, and just as swiftly it spat the card back out. "Cannot complete transaction." Being a bit of a dimwit I tried it again, only to receive the same response. Curious.

So down the street I went, trying to find another ATM to get my much-needed roti money. This time the card went into the machine, and I was able to execute all the proper actions to produce cash. I heard the machines shuffling my paper, and then it emitted a beeping noise that aroused in me what I shall describe as "sheer terror." ATMs didn't make noises like this, to my knowledge. Dying water fowl perhaps, but not ATMs. My card was spat back out and the entire screen went dark save a "transaction cannot be completed" message flashing in green on the black canvas.

Curious indeed. Undeterred but confidence shaken I continued down the road yet further and after a panicked 10 minute stroll I encountered another ATM. This time braced for rejection with fingers crossed, I basically closed my eyes and prayed as I asked the bank gods for my own money. Apparently that goat I sacrificed outside the vault reached the heavens and my roti funds were delivered in full. I was still a bit shaken up from the experience, but at least I had the ability to buy a snack. Rupee-rupee bills yaaaall!

This is a pretty common phenomenon around Sri Lanka. Recently on my trip to Kandy, I actually visited 6 banks before finding an ATM that would accept my card, each time concerned that my bank had shut me off like an angry parent taking away my allowance because I forgot to take the trash out. Or didn't want to. Or lit it on fire, whatever, I don't remember why I lost my allowance, ok? The good news is I've steeled myself to the let down now and I don't fear that I'll be stuck here without any means of getting home. I do however fear that in the short term, I won't have roti money. And that my friends would be unacceptable.

These Abs Don't Crunch Themselves, Ya Know

"A bear, however hard he tries, grows tubby without exercise."

~ A.A. Milne ~

When people think about me, two words come to mind: godlike physique. My whole life people have stopped me on the street and said stuff like, "excuse me sir, do you need the name of a good veterinarian? Cause those pythons are sick." I jointly put exercise and clean living atop my to do list and I never miss the opportunity to keep my body at peak operational capacity.

Oh wait a minute, no I don't. My body is less like a temple and more a thatched lean-to, held up by shoelaces, leftover chewing gum and sheer willpower. The fact that I'm still breathing is nothing short of a miracle. So when I left the sinful excesses of Gotham a few months back, I figured it would be a perfect opportunity to reinvent myself with some of that aforementioned exercise and clean living. After all, the nightlife of Sri Lanka hardly rivals that of my East Village haunt.

As it turns out, my friends, you can't simply stop drinking whiskey and pray for the best. Everyone reassured me, "oh sure, it's boring there but you're going to lose so much weight! If you aren't going out and drinking you're going to get so skinny!" I was convinced that by avoiding Makers and rocks I would end up looking like a short, white D'Angelo.

In a way though, my wish came true. After a month of almost no booze and extremely controlled eating, I did indeed look like a short, white D'Angelo - so I figured I should introduce some actual working out into the mix. The roads around here are ridiculously unsafe to jog on, unless you like dodging out-of-control buses and being chased by stray dogs, of course. And much to my chagrin, there isn't a Gold's Gym anywhere nearby, so I turned to yoga. What could be easier? I got a yoga mat and a sweet yoga dvd. I was geared up for fitness.

I popped in the dvd and made it through about two poses, delivered at lightning-fast progression despite me selecting the beginner setting, and then something in my hamstring starting tingling. I leaned down to check on it and bumped into my bed, thus disturbing the delicate "sun salutation" balance I was already struggling to maintain, and I took a swan-position nosedive into my less than cushy yoga mat. I quit yoga that very instant. Quickly remembering my talents as a researcher, I spent the next few exercise-free days on the webosphere looking for good workouts to do in the comfort of my own room. At last, success - a quick 20 minute stretch-and-situps combo that I deigned worthy of my time.

Sure, it's super low impact, but it beats not doing anything. I might've been a little impatient in demanding that seven years of gluttonous over-indulgence be erased by four weeks of sobriety and curry, but after month two here I'm starting to feel a bit better off. Minus the brief freak-out I had when my coworker called me "fat" two days ago, I'm holding up pretty well. Since I've remained in strict compliance with my three-roti-per-day-diet, I am going to go ahead and assume it was just a language barrier issue there.

Hopelessly Devoted

At least I didn't get a wedgie this time

"Table for two, sir?"

I contemplated my answer. Do I give the hostess the satisfaction of knowing I'll be dining alone again this evening? Maybe I can come up with an extremely elaborate lie about a wife or girlfriend that's up in the room of the hotel where I'm dinnering, then she'll leave me alone.

"Actually, my...," but I took pause. Then I'd have to lie about what room I was staying in. This was far too complicated considering I was already about three deep. "Actually, I'll be dining alone tonight."

Before my trip to Sri Lanka, those words scared the living hell out of me. They conjure up memories of not being able to sit at the cool kids table or getting picked last for kickball. Neither of those things happened to me, I swear, I'm just using them as examples. But I've found that traveling alone changed my perspective on little things like talking to myself, sitting without company in a park and yes, even partnerless feasting. Dining alonesies has become old hat for me by now - frankly the only people that seem to be embarrassed by it anymore are the waitstaff who pay waaaay too much attention to me in some kind of weird overcompensation for my perceived awkwardness.

Last week really tested my limits though. I've already had to suffer through countless tuk tuk drivers and UNESCO World Heritage Site guides asking me why I wasn't married. "Where's your girlfriend? You don't have one? Why not? You're here alone? Why are you alone? Do you think it's related to your fear of rejection? I think this might be rooted in something deeper, you should come visit me at Sigirya twice a week until we straighten this out." It was more of the same when I visited the lush greenscape of Nuwara Eliya a few days ago.

Home to Sri Lanka's vast tea fields, the quaint village affectionately nicknamed "Little England" (by the ruthless English colonizers who brutally carved the settlement into an unsuspecting mountainside) provides ample venues for escape from noisy city life. I picked one of the more remote hotels and marched my petooty right outa town to enjoy a drink on the veranda. I watched the sun drop slowly over the mountains while enjoying a second. Knuckle deep into pouring my third, the kindly barkeep suggested I come inside for dinner, lest I scare off the Dutch tourists milling about out front. I prepared for another evening of asking myself how my day was over a hearty repast.

But then we took it to the next level. I wasn't only eating alone at my table, I was alone in the restaurant. There was me, two waiters and the kitchen staff...and since the allure here was the open-air kitchen, even the chefs could stare at me while I supped a solo. No big deal, another Carlsburg should help steel my nerves to the...wait, is that muzak? My waiter, ever the consummate judge of what I would and would not like while eating alone, had started up the romantic keyboard covers to help set the mood. They opened with the Disney classic Beauty and the Beast. It went downhill for me from there. I kept it together for Berlin's Take my Breath Away, and I hung tough during a twinkly version of Hopelessly Devoted off the Grease soundtrack. But damn it all, they bested me when they dropped The Way We Were on me. Damn you, Barbara, damn your talented soul.

There was nothing left for me to do but resign for the night and head on home. Such evenings only prove what I already suspected, which is that I really prefer traveling with a companion. And despite me constantly inviting him along, Jack Daniels doesn't count.

Off the Wagon

The sexiest molecule on the planet

After three-plus years of clean living, I finally caved. I couldn't take it anymore...the peer pressure was too great. Everywhere I go, people are social drinking, and I want to fit in. Especially now that I'm here in Sri Lanka, it seems like there's just this incessant need to tempt me. I'm sorry, I snapped...

I'm back on caffeine.

There's only so many times you can say no to "the best tea in the world." I walk down the street and they're offering it to me in every shop window, on every corner. "Hey man, we got the hook up - you like orange pekoe fannings? Got em bro." During last week's trip to up-country near the famous tea estates around Nuwara Eliya, I took a visit to the Labookellie Tea Factory and figured since I was at the source, I might as well dip a cup into the well.

Holy hell you guys. Have you ever not had caffeine for three years and then had the tea equivalent of crack rock cocaine? I swear to you I was seeing triple. Time slowed down. Things...things made sense.

Those of you who know me might at this point ask, "Hey Eric, why of all the myriad bad habits you kept up with over the years did you ditch entirely the relatively innocuous caffeinated beverage?" First of all, shut up, I don't have that many bad habits. Second of all, it wasn't by choice. Much like my lactose intolerance and my crippling fear of clowns, caffeine found a way to make my stomach do jumping jacks. Somehow, magically though, I appear to be able to drink Ceylon tea without any negative side effects!

Well, aside from the ridiculous caffeine binge I've been on for the last three days. Do you know what my dreams have been like lately? Me neither, cause I haven't closed my eyes in 67 hours. And work productivity has shifted from a standardized clip to a stop-and-go flurry of ONoffONoffONoffONoff. The plan was to reintroduce caffeine slowly back into my life, but since they didn't teach pacing oneself at college I never learned that skill. Oh well, I guess we'll go with immersion therapy until I get the hang of this thing.

One-Man Pub Crawl: Cry For Help or Best Idea Ever?

Like this, but with 85 less people

"The problem with the world is that everyone is a few drinks behind."

Humphrey Bogart

I was about to catch the bus to the beautiful royal gardens of Peradiniya just outside of Kandy.

Then I had a beer at 11:30 am.

To be entirely fair, this whole fiasco was not instigated by me. As I walked into the hustly bustly town of Kandy from my peaceful mountain keep where I slept and stored my backpack, I grew increasingly impatient with the bus horns and the soot and the throngs of weekend shoppers going to market. Every cross walk that refused to let me pass until sixty tuk-tuks blazed through made me furious. Every ratty dog reminded me that the towns in this country tend to be like the proverbial obnoxious frat boy you didn't want at your party - loud, dirty and asking for money. But then fortune struck in the form of a wayward ship captain from Colombo who spoke beautiful English and wanted to chat.

"Would you like to join me for a cup of tea," he inquired. And before I could accept, "or perhaps even a beer?"

"Sounds great - it's five o'clock somewhere!"

His brow tweaked up a notch in a clear failure to understand my delightful Americanism. So off we walked, away from the bus station that was just finally within view and down a side street to a random unmarked bar area on the second floor of a cafe. We chatted, sharing our life stories and making a fast friendship. He showed me pictures of his other correspondence abroad and post cards from around the world. Then he graciously offered to send me some tea in the US because his family owned some land in the tea country and he wanted to share his bounty with me.

At this point, of course, I realized I was being scammed. He unsurprisingly asked me to help pay the postage now and added that in a few short weeks, I could let my darling mother know that pure Ceylon tea would arrive from a gracious benefactor in the Far East. Even knowing full well it was a rip, I gave the guy the 280 rupees he asked for, roughly $3 US, and figured maybe the universe would surprise me. I still have some faith in humanity.  

Had he asked for $5 I would've told him to go screw though - apparently I only have $3 of faith in humanity. We parted ways, him slightly richer and me slightly buzzed from our Lion Lagers. At this point I felt I deserved another drink at the famed Queens Hotel down the road, where I proceeded to accidentally order a quadruple arrack after a bumbled conversation with the bar keep. You'll note however that this roused zero complaint on my part. My fate was sealed. I was gonna bar hop through Kandy.

I produced my Rough Guide "Entertainment" section for the town of Kandy, unceremoniously ripped from the book itself and shoved loose-leaf into my cargo pocket, and contemplated my next steps. Fortune smiled upon me, friends, for there were two bars not half a block from me! I toasted to myself, and filled with good cheer and cheap arrack I stumbled forth to the next pub up the road. A few more arracks and a couple Carlsburgs later, I housed a plate of fries and a club sandwich in order to tamp down the growing buzz I realized had numbed my feet and slowed my speech.

"Chszehck plasle," I shot to the waiter. Boy oh boy, this had sure been a fun day! Bar hopping through downtown Kandy could really pass the time...or so I thought until I checked my phone. 4:30pm. It was only 4:30 pm, and I was fading fast. I raced to the nearest tuk-tuk and demanded he take me the 2 kilometers up into the treacherous mountain roads through which salvation and my hostel bedroom lay. Of course, the driver had no clue where we were going so I had to drunkenly navigate from the back seat, all the while shoving muscat and coconut powder cake into my face to silence the growling of my liquor filled tummy. Somehow my internal radar, unaffected by my liver-wrecking chicanery, brought me safely to my doorstep where I marched immediately upstairs...

And ordered another beer. Hell, it's not a real pub crawl until you make 4 actual stops, and I'm counting the hostel as me hitting par. Sure, I've had more hardcore pub crawls in the past - July 4, 2008 was a doooooozy - but this was the first time I've ever rocked a full bunny hop of drinking all by myself. In a foreign country no less! The pride in this achievement comes in yet another activity undertaken all on my lonesome with relatively acceptable results. Sure, I woke up at 11pm hungover and having missed dinner, but that's what the coconut pastry was for.

I stand by my decision.

A Rather Peculiar Thanksgiving...

Food, folks and Freudian Slips

I had no illusions that my Thanksgiving would be of the normal sort. After all, the good people of Sri Lanka haven't even heard about the joyous American holiday of Thanksgiving, so I expected little in the way of my regular schedule of appetizers, football, beer, football, dinner, football, dinner round two, football, dessert and some more dinner, sleeping while listening to football. After some furious message board posting though, I was able to discover a location for an American-style Thanksgiving throw down - the five-star Mount Lavinia Hotel.

After a quick google double-check to make sure I wasn't getting my hopes up for nothing, I confirmed that the menu was loaded down with turkey, turducken, ham, three kinds of stuffing, potatoes and a corn succotash of sorts, very few of which contained a large amount of curry. "I'd like to make a reservation for the Thanksgiving dinner, please," I told the nice desk clerk over the phone. "Of course sir, and how many will be in your party?"

"Just one. What time should I show up?"

"Any time you want (loser), we should be able to seat you easily (cause you're a loser)."

Ok, to be fair, they didn't say those things in brackets, but I heard it in their inflection. Unable to rustle up anyone to go with me, even after I explained to my co-workers that Thanksgiving is a pointless holiday founded on a lie based around over eating and watching a sport they've never seen, so I braved the driving rain and flooded highways to get to my succulent holiday feast.

Arriving slightly on the earlier side, I was able to assure myself the best slices of bird. I also assured myself of sitting in the corner of a rather empty restaurant, perched on the edge of sketch-fest as I ordered an apertif and a bottle of wine before even getting my first look at the buffet. I'm a man with priorities - and that priority was "when forced to dine alone, one might as well drink alone to smooth the process." Worked like a charm - I enjoyed some stuffing and turducken, and then still ready to rock moved on for some green bean curry and egg hoppers. What can I say, I love the food here.

Four rounds of dinner and one of dessert later, I moved on to the bar portion of my evening. I dropped cash for the bill and took the post-turkey-haze stroll across the hall to a large open bar area. The outdoors was of course blanketed with sheets of driving rain, so I stayed inside and enjoyed a glass of overpriced cognac, because damn it, it's a holiday.  Off behind me echoes a booming sound of an American making a loud point...my ears perked. A moment later, an emphatic Boston accent yelps in terror as the lady at the table clumsily knocks over three bottles all in one fell swoop. These seem like my kinda people, I said to myself.

I stopped by their table, emboldened by the turducken and sauvignon blanc coursing through my veins, and after a brief moment of sizing each other up I was invited to join them, effectively ruining their date and making my night all in one smooth chair grab. We polished off the vino - he bought another bottle. I killed my cognac - he ordered another from the barkeep. This continued for some time, until eventually he stood up and just like that, took off, having covered the bill and promising to call me the next day to go hang out again.

Sparing you the details of whether or not he called me (he didn't), it was a great help in saving an otherwise run of the mill Thanksgiving. Sure, much like non-conventional families on sitcoms, non-conventional Thanksgivings seem wacky and fun, but I'm still glad I was able to American-up my dinner plans and get rowdy with some dude from Boston as we prattled on about baseball and gambling debts.

Now that's something to be thankful for.

Happy Thanksgiving!

 

Joyous Thanksgiving wishes from Dear Lonely Planet! 

They're Born Every Minute...

"Hello dumb-dumb"

I'm convinced I'm the easiest mark on the planet. If a fool and his money are soon parted, then I'm a grade-A moron cause I've been makin' it rain for every scam artist that's crossed my path since I landed in South Asia. The worst part about all of these stupid tricks to ply my money out of my wallet is that every time I fork over those hundred rupee notes I know that I'm getting played! But I keep going back for more...possibly because I like the abuse, but more likely because I have an oddly optimistic blind faith in the goodness of humanity.

As long as it doesn't cost too much, anyways.

You don't have to be a world traveler to know that there are grifters and touts all over the damn place. From the classic three-card-monte routine that I assume was omnipresent in 1980s New York thanks to being overrepresented in my favorite childhood sitcoms to the ever so tempting Nigerian prince with too much money on his hands angle, as long as there have been idiots with money, there have been clever rouges trying desperately to separate them from it. These devilish gambits are kicked into super high gear when traveling abroad - and if you name a scam, I've fallen for it.

I've been tricked out of going to the King's Palace in Bangkok because I was told it was closed for "prayer time." Instead I went shopping - the driver got kick backs. I've been told I could take a fun picture of my friend with a nice Vietnamese lady's basket of fruit - then we were charged handsomely for the opportunity to have done so. Hell I've even paid face value for souvenirs in Israel, which I'm relatively sure is a crime punishable by public shaming at Passover dinner.

But I can't help myself! I'm on vacation! I'm relaxed, I'm not in the negotiating zone. I don't much feel like arguing with some random Tel Aviv shopkeep over a matter of 2 bucks...I just want that stupid hanging lamp so I can give it to an ex-girlfriend who will tell me its nice and then never hang it up. My most recent 'look-here-comes-another-one' moment was a binge purchase of Sri Lankan ayurvedic medicines. Apparent these natural tonics are so effective, they've managed to alleviate all known medical problems amongst the healthy and upwardly mobile native population!

At least that's what they told me at the spice and herbal garden I went to near Dambulla. I took a walk through the interactive exhibits and learned how all of these plants around me were made into medicines that help balance the humors and fight disease by creating harmony in our bodies. I was enchanted by the sights and smells of the free ayurvedic massage they graciously gifted me. I was even blown away when the natural hair removal cream was unceremoniously slapped on my forearm to show me how easy it is to permanently have baby soft, hairless skin (while at the same time forcing me to have to explain to everyone I met going forward why half of my right forearm doesn't have any hair on it anymore). I was so taken in, in fact, that when they paraded me through the room of ayurvedic cures I was convinced I wanted all of them.

Then they told me the price. Kids, I swear to you I showed the utmost of discretion, and I still ended up dropping like $300 bucks on this crap. But it was too good to pass up! Sure, the weight loss tonic made of honey and red pineapple extract probably won't put a dent in my waistline, and a 32 ounce drink made of turmeric and coconut husks that promises to get me to quit smoking forever was a long shot, but I figured I might as well give it a go. And for a mere $120, I bought a magical cure-all that apparently completely fixes my internal balance for 21 goddamn years. If you average that out, it's only $6 a year for balanced humors! Why, I'd be a sucker NOT to buy it!

So why do I continually hand over my somewhat hard-earned money to cheats and thieves at the first promise of an unlikely upside? I suppose I want to believe it'll actually work out like they say it will. If someone tells me a place is closed, I'd like to believe that it's true. If someone offers to take my picture doing some fun, foreign cultural activity, I'd hope it would be out of the goodness of their hearts. And, well, it just made good sense to buy all that ayurvedic crap cause in the off chance it works, I think I'm going to turn into some kind of slender ubermench with the ability to juggle planets as if they were tennis balls. Like I said - I'd be a sucker NOT to buy it.

I've Got A Ticket to Ri-ide

"I want you inside me."

Last Wednesday marked the rather auspicious halfway mark of my time here in Sri Lanka. Halving spent six weeks on the island once known as Serendipity, I found myself at odds over how to spend the remainder of my time in South Asia. Seeing as how my work projects were clipping along nicely, and that I had been able to maintain a relatively entertaining blog account of my time so far, I said screw it, time for a vacay!

Supervisor was kind enough to understand my need to travel the countryside and graciously agreed to let me take five days off from work, weekend included.  So I decided to hit the mountains! My plan was to start with a first-class-cabin train ride to the ancient Sinhalese capital Kandy, and then tour the ruins in the North at my leisure. I was told I simply must experience the train ride up in the observation lounge, a fantastic bargain at a mere $3.25 each way. My head swirled with images of dining cars, chandeliers and white gloved bar service. Wes Anderson's Darjeeling Limited was to be a sad echo of what splendor awaited me. After all, I had waited in line for twenty minutes to pay three American dollars for this seat, so I expected the world.

Too proud to ask any of the locals for directions, I stumbled around the Colombo Fort train station for a bit in search of my iron-railed chariot of luxury. Settling finally on the number 2 track as my most likely candidate, I attempted to decipher the loud speaker's message about train departure times to no avail and just hopped on board. After all, the rear-most car with the large windows was marked "Observation Lounge." Let the pampering begin!

Oh how shall I describe to you the majesty...ah yes, I know. Have you ever taken the Chinatown bus from New York to DC or Boston? That's pretty much what we were dealing with here, except there were half a dozen children running up and down the aisles and what I hoped were seeni sambol stains on the floor. No matter, I was still going to steal me a better seat than the back row aisle number that the conductor had clearly given to me because I failed to know, without ever visiting here before, to ask for the number 11 or 12 seat. Those were the sweet spots - right up front with a huge window directly looking out from the back of the train. I pilfered them up quickly and stared angrily at a book in the hopes that no one would bother me.

That lasted about four minutes. I was kicked out of my non-seat by a happy looking couple in their early 20s, clearly off for a romantic weekend together. I immediately decided I disliked them.  Aggravated but aware that the seats were never truly mine to begin with, I shifted back a row - still a sweet view out of the front win...wait, another couple asked me to move. Apparently this also adorable young couple also wanted a romantic view of the glorious Kandyan skyline. I decided I didn't care for them much either, but I obliged by moving back another row.  The view wasn't spectacular, but at least I had a window and the seats all to myself. Success, they name is Eric.

We got rolling just a few minutes after our scheduled departure, and we were off! Sure, I was missing out on the view and the seats weren't the magic I hoped they'd be, but at least I had the smooth ride up the mountainside for a few hours to kick back and WHAM! We nearly bounced off the tracks. Odd, must've hit a curve or someWHAM WHAM! This time we bounced a full four feet in the air and slammed back down on the rails, only to then be ripped sideways as we rounded a turn. At this point I remembered what the stoned nineteen year old roller coaster technician told me about the Great American Scream Machine when I was a kid. "Sure, the front car has the view, but that back car makes you feel like you're body is going to get ripped apart!" When I was twelve this was quite a desirable feeling. At twenty-nine...less-so.

No matter, I was a tough kid with a taste for adventure, so I grabbed a hold of the seat and bounced along for the next hour or so, too scared to pick up my camera lest it comically fly out of my hands on a rough turn. I positioned myself in a sweet between-the-two-couples-adorably-lain-heads view through the front of the window just in time to have couple number one pull the shade. Why in god's name would you pick the best seat in the house just to pull the shade? Oh I see, she wants to nap gently on his shoulder and he wants to coo sweet nothings into her ear without the distracting grandeur of the Sri Lankan hillside. I officially hated this couple. Undeterred, however, I settled in for the long haul and after a while I actually got pretty good at handling the rather insane bumps and tosses that the train had to offer.

Sure, instead of martinis they served nescafe and in lieu of prime rib, egg hoppers. After all was said and done though it was a fine start to the journey. I had arrived in Kandy safe and sound and my vacation was just getting under way. All in all, it beat the hell out of the Chinatown bus.

Heming-way or the High Way

"Honey, did you close the garage door? I don't remember if I closed the garage door"

"Too much work, and no vacation,
Deserves at least a small libation."
Oscar Wilde

Aaaaaah...nothing quite like kicking your heels up and enjoying a hard earned drink. Yup, there's a lot of kinds of drinking out there - to forget, to remember, to remember to forget - but nothing quite beats knowing that you don't have work tomorrow, that you didn't have work yesterday and that all you gotta do is relax.

That is of course until you wake up hungover at 4am, rousted from your bed by a wake up call you wish you hadn't requested, and stumble out into the dawn in order to go see some touristy crap you immediately regret signing up for.  You could be hiking in the hills, biking down a volcano, checking out an ancient temple - for that first hour, all you want to do is hit snooze. There's an art to drinking on vacation. It's one we all learn to master only after a good deal of trial and error.

In my experience, the best way to avoid the problem is of course just not drinking at all the night before a big day out. "But it's vacation bro," your compatriots might say. "Just have a couple and we'll be good to go." Famous last words. Unless you're sticking to your tried and true favorites, you really don't know what you're getting yourself into.  For instance, when visiting Galle a few weeks ago, I had a couple of beers with dinner.  Literally two beers. For the next week, I felt awful - apparently Lion Lager is made with some kind of aggressive Asian yeast that attacks your small intestine after finishing off the sugars in your alcohol. In Peru, failure to order your drinks "sin hielo," or "without ice" to you gringos, meant that you were about to dance with the devil in the pale fluorescent light (of a bathroom). As soon as those delicious little cubes of cold finished chilling out your mojito, they would turn your insides into a war zone. Amazingly though, after three shots of Vietnamese rice whiskey that was cured with a scorpion, a snake and a crow in it, I felt fantastic.

Actual picture of what I drank

At the end of the day, foreign booze is really no different than any other strange thing you'll experience when you're abroad.  Half the fun of traveling is trying crazy new drinks or new types of animal meat. There isn't a whole lot you can do to prevent an adventurous repast from turning into a 5 day course of cipro and an embarrassing week at the office.  It's a foreign country with foreign food and foreign drink, and your body doesn't always know what hit it. Just try to avoid doing it before a long day away from bathrooms.

 ~

A brief aside to my awesome readers - thanks to everyone who has been following along with my adventures so far! I've been at this for just over a month now and so far we've gotten over 3500 page views, which as far as I'm concerned is a ridiculous triumph. The positive feedback has been incredible and a great motivator to keep up my awkwardness abroad. I will be hitting the road this week in order to do some traveling around the countryside, so internet access will be severely limited - hence, no posts for a couple days. Fear not, as I'll be collecting up all sorts of stupid tales of my idiocy to share with you when I get back!

Jakarta Be Kidding Me!

"We wander for distraction, but we travel for fulfillment." Hilaire Belloc

Holy crap, I've spent six weeks in Sri Lanka!  I know, I had to double check the calendar also to make sure it was for truesies. So far I've soared to incredible new heights of productivity, almost exclusively owing to my new found sobriety.  I've tried all sorts of strange new foods, almost all of them curried.  And just yesterday I got ambushed by a massive water monitor who crawled out of the sewer during the last rainstorm. But I've done almost no actual touring of the countryside! WTF!

All of that changes next week.  I've planned out a delightful 5 day excursion starting in a temptingly misleading town by the name of Kandy and then circling through the ancient cities in the North.  Pictures will be taken, bicycles rented, memories made. Sadly because of my schedule, I realized I'm only going to get to take maybe two more actual trips around the island to see more of Sri Lanka. I hate this part of traveling - knowing that you only have x many days to get to y many locations. It's oddly reminiscent of the logic games on the LSAT, except that if you screw this up you end up stuck with third class tickets and racing the clock to catch your flight. I can't possibly make it to the beaches out East and to the tea country.  And there's definitely no way I'm going to make it to any of the surrounding countries like Indonesia or the Maldives.

But you know, I'm not too broken up about that...I've been saving Indonesia.  It's a weird approach to travel, but I don't know a single person that isn't saving some special destination for the right time to go. Everyone wants to see Paris, but most people don't want to end up spending 12 hours there on a layover and then calling it a visit. It's your first time in a new country, you want it to be...ya know... special. I was asked a couple weeks ago why I was saving Indonesia specifically. Simple - I always pictured a honeymoon in Bali.  No, I don't have a girlfriend and there aren't even available women in my country, but that's not the point.  I have some romantic vision that at least one of my honeymoon's is going to be at an awesome glass floored luxury beach villa in Bali.  Unfortunately my absolute lack of originality was pointed out to me by my little brother Jon, for when I visited him down at school a month or so ago said that he too was saving Bali for his honeymoon...the race is on bucko.

Even now when I'm so close to Indonesia, I don't want to spoil the awesomeness of my imagined post-nuptial evenings in the Lesser Sundas.  I started to think about why it was so important for me to save a destination - shouldn't you go somewhere amazing if you get the chance? Hell, I'm an 'eat dessert first' kinda guy, why over think things? Still though I can't help but feel that part of exotic travel is the romance of the trip, and when you build that image up in your mind it's hard to change it.  Bali is supposed to be champagne and caviar...not hostels and street sambal. I don't just want to tick off the box that I visited on a harried 36 hour weekend between work days...I want to really lose myself for weeks at a time on white-sand shores without having to drag around a backpack. And most of all I don't want to go by myself to an island paradise where I envisioned spending my honeymoon.  That's just soul crushing.

In trying something a bit different, I kick the mic over to you, dear readers.  Have you a special destination that you've been saving for a particular reason?  Have you avoided San Fran because you want to do a summer wine tour with your sweetie pie? Do you imagine the day you can trek into Tanzania with your siblings on a savanna adventure? Tell me about it! Post your anecdotes in the comments below. 

In order to incentivize participation, I will write a Shakespearean sonnet immortalizing in poetry the best comment that I get. And yes, I am absolutely serious.

Like, Ohmigod!

Visionaries

Up until Saturday, I have done most of my shopping in Sri Lanka at tiny little hole in the wall store fronts with a random collection of nick-knacks and whatever off-the-back-of-the-truck groceries they were able to scrounge up that week.  Up until last Saturday, I bought soda, bananas, crackers and curry from the same three mud brick shanties.  Up until last Saturday, I thought that those were my only shopping options on my new island home.

Then I went to the mall. Oh how my eyes have opened my friends!

I am a firm believer in the idea that if you have low expectations, you will only be pleasantly surprised by reality.  Thanks to what I had been told about the mall so far, my expectations were not exactly through the roof. Owing to a mild hangover on Saturday, I didn't really get rolling until the early afternoon so Supervisor tried to tell me that the mall was probably closed anyway.  I've learned that pretty much you never know when things are open or closed in this country, so I risked a tuk-tuk ride to nowhere and mounted up for the 40 minute trek to Majestic City shopping mall.

Aaaah Majestic City.  Even the name conjures fantastic images of shopping bliss.  Promenades of wonders the likes of which your Western eyes have never seen. Snake charmers fluting serpents from wicker baskets, sword jugglers cheating death as each arcing saber swings ever closer to their tanned bodies, and an Auntie Anne's pretzel shop! Ok fine, they didn't have any of those things.  What they did have were my only real requirements for a happy mall-going experience: cheap dvds, air conditioning and fast food.

As I ambled along the hallways of this most majestic of cities, I found myself wondering how anyone could hate on capitalism.  After a quick lap around the first floor, I noted the KFC by the exit and made my way into the first DVD store I could find.  The true purpose of my trip today was to score some cheap movies and televizzle seasons so I could stop relying on my spotty internet to deliver Frasier on YouTube in 5 minute increments.  For the first ten minutes, I merely surveyed the selection and tried to take stock of what I was up against.  "How much is this one," I asked as I held up Casablanca, a movie I've never seen but want to own for some reason.  "200 rupees."  Sweet, two bucks for Casablanca.  "How about this one," inquiring as to the cost of this classy looking yoga dvd. "200 rupees. Every movie is 200 rupees."  As I swallowed back an excited yelp, I decided it was time to stop playing coy with the shop keep and I went to town.  A feverish two minute smash and grab later, I ended up with 6 movies and a season of Castle.  Whatever man, I've come to terms with my man crush on Nathan Fillion.  More importantly, I scored Lottery Ticket starring Bow Wow and Ice Cube, which is now the crowning jewel of my black market collection.  I exited, hauling my wheelbarrow of new viewing material and continued to bathe in the filth of consumerism for a little longer.  Eventually I ran out of cash and figured it was time to pack it in for the day. 

Happier than a capitalist pig in shit, I could think of no better way to round out this delightful excursion than by swinging through the KFC for din din on the way out the door.  The plan was to get a Snacker and the Biriyani with fried chicken, a delightful East meets West platter with just enough saturated fat to lull me into a greasy slumber for the ride home.  Then I saw it...the most glorious sandwich that ere graced god's green earth...the ZINGER!  A fried chicken patty with spicy goo baked right into the goddam chicken. So what if it was twice as much as anything else on the menu, I had to have it.  Today I was a consumer, my consumption knew no limits.  "One ZINGER please!" I aggressively slapped down the 500 rupee note on the counter and awaited my feast, hands trembling in excitement.

What Counter Guy handed me though was anything less than glorious.  The fries were soggy and over salted.  The sandwich, virtually inedible. The chicken, ribboned with fat, could hardly be saved by the modicum of "spicy" sauce that resided mostly on the left hemisphere of the meat globe. As fist sized dollops of mayo fell out the back of the bun with each bite, sliding my already disappointing sandwich further towards the edge of the abyss, I pressed forward convinced that my reward was nothing short of mana from heaven. I was loving every disgusting bite.

The flat Sprite didn't stop me from loving it. The 35 year old man at the table next to me screaming at his mother for five minutes over their shared cup of ice cream didn't stop me from loving it. Even the one legged beggar outside who stared blankly in my general direction for my entire meal didn't stop me from loving it. I was in the mall baby, and I was feelin' good.

My meal was an atrocity and I dropped mad cash on movies and random housewares, but I think I have my room feeling a lot more like my room now. I got some new area rugs and a sweet pink yoga mat that I'm looking forward to not using as much as I mean to. Yup, I can sit back and watch movies and not work out again. Sri Lanka's starting to feel a lot more like home.   

Sri Lanka Is A Total Sausagefest

It got weird, didn't it.

Dude.  What happened.  Did you send out all the invites?  You told me that you looked through the freshman facebook and invited all the hot chicks.  You said that you told that cute blond girl in Chem125 who like totally made out with Christie down the hall that we were raging later, and you said they said they were gonna come too.  My boy Stinky Pete used his fake to score us some 30 racks and you're tellin me that it's all dudes here? Well fine then, I get first on the beirut table.

Ah shoot, sorry about that...I guess I just had a flashback to freshman year of college.  You know, when you think you're gonna go out and end up at the best party ever but really you just play asshole for ten hours, order pizza at four in the morning, chain smoke a pack of Camels and sleep through International Relations the next morning?  That's not a joke, that's just a literal retelling of what I did every Wednesday night my freshman year.  The joke here is that I've been in Sri Lanka for nigh upon 3 fortnights and I'm tellin you bro, there are no friggin chicks here.

First and foremost, I want to point out that I didn't come to Sri Lanka to meet women.  My intentions in leaving my well-paying, party-a-day lifestyle were to come here and get re-centered, change my career path, lose weight and try to ditch that nagging "work makes me want to kill myself" feeling.  So far I'm progressing steadily on all fronts - but I just find it alarming that there don't seem to be any chicks here! Are the freshman boys just forced to assume that every night will be all about Halo? Do they all get assigned a Color Wheel when they turn 15 and encouraged to just accept their nomadic fate as planeswalkers of the multiverse? Damnit, sorry, that was me flashing back to my freshman year of high school.  I played a trample-damage-mana-hoarding deck, just in case you wanted to compare notes.

It's ridiculous though! The only time I've actually seen boys and girls interacting on this island is when I take a stroll to the beach on the weekends.  Apparently this is the one time that couples can run away from home and find a nice shady palm frond to furtively hide under, romantically overlooking the Indian Ocean.  As the rhythmic thumping of its crashing waves hiccups in their chests, their breath collectively held in a vain attempt to never let their shared moment end, their hands touch.  A spark! A connection! He turns to her, and leans in and says..."Why is that white guy staring at us?" Sorry dude, just wondering where you found a lady.  Realizing that I was now making a spectacle out of myself, I stopped waving at the happy couple and decided to head back home.

I've asked around a bit to see if my suspicions were just me being paranoid, and I have independent confirmation from three separate and distinct sources that there are in fact a dearth of chicks in Sri Lanka.
Source 1 - a co-worker of similar age to myself, who admits that people tend to get married pretty early around here.  Fair enough.
Source 2 - a wealthy Sri Lankan local who has spent most of the last decade working in New York City, who shared a cheap arrack with me and said that you can pretty much forget about local women here cause they don't leave the house.  Okedokie.
Source 3 - an American girl who was traveling through the area after teaching English in Thailand for the past year, who admitted that the scarcity of women on the gem-filled teardrop paradise is a nightmare for her.  Apparently every single hotel employee this side of Matara swarms to the foreigners when they hop off the bus, possibly because all the girls they know are already married.

I could be looking at this the wrong way though.  Perhaps this is a perfect time to embrace my no chicks lifestyle.  I could finally finish up that Star Wars Timothy Zahn style post-post-series that I've had in mind all these years (one where I start by killing of Jacen and Jaina).  My piddling 7th level Paladin might finally have time to level up to slay the alabaster dragon of Azaroth.  Oh and I can finally catch up on all those Deep Space Nine episodes I missed when I was busy being so cool when it was first on!

Ok fine - rewatching Deep Space Nine because I totally had time to watch it during its first run. I guess now all I need is that 30 rack and some of Stinky Pete's Skankin Pickle CDs and we'll have ourselves a party.  Anyone up for some beruit?

Makin' It Great!

It's not exactly right field, but you gotta admit that Sri Lanka is pretty far from home base.  If there's been any theme to my tales of misadventure so far it's been the entirely obvious proposition that living in small-town-South-Asia is a weeee bit different than big city slickin' back in NYC.  All snarkiness aside, I love getting out of my bubble and jumping in way over my head into a whole new culture with new people in a strange new environment.  Getting away helps you learn a lot about yourself and about your place in the world.  Getting away also makes you appreciate the things you had back home, too.

Like pizza. Oh dear god I miss pizza.  It's not like I need to eat pizza every day to be happy...I was just pleased to know that I could have if I so chose. Pizza was there for me at 4 a.m. when all the bars turned me away.  Pizza was there for me when I slept through brunch and just needed something to tide me over for three hours until dinner (which was probably more pizza).  Pizza was there for me what I was so lazy that I ordered in food for 7 straight meals and didn't leave my apartment for three days because I discovered Netflix on-demand and watched 3 seasons of Family Guy, the entire series of Arrested Development, a season and a half of Party Down and the new Star Trek movie without leaving the comfort of my 1 bedroom apartment.

After behaving myself for over four straight weeks - eating the local food, not drinking at home alone, not stuffing my face with random junk just cause it's cheap - 'bad habit Eric' started to peek out from behind the curtains.  He was sick of rice and curry.  He was tired of ginger tea and crackers for snack options.  He missed pizza and beer and he was making this point clear to me.  With surprisingly little resistance, 'bad habit Eric' stormed my psyche armed with a bat labeled 'id' and kneecapped my superego until it cried for mercy.  Now firmly in control of all my thoughts and actions, 'bad habit Eric' went straight to the grocery store and bought three rather large bottles of Carlsburg and concerned about the quality of the local fare, I hopped a tuk tuk for Pizza Hut.  Daddy was gonna party.

Nearly 25 minutes later when we finally got to the Hut, I ran in and demanded the largest pizza they had, covered in a ridiculous amount of toppings.  Cost was no issue, I screamed!  I want this topping and that topping and this crust and that side dish!  Finally I realized that the person at the register didn't speak any English, so I politely asked for the manager and ordered again, this time with less dramatic zeal.  I collected my prize and started back for home in my tuk tuk.

Exercising the utmost of self restraint, I sat with a pile of beer and an entire pizza next to me for 25 minutes knowing that once I got home the wait would definitely be worth it.  But I started to get antsy.  'Bad habit Eric' was still at the helm and he was p'd the f o.  Driver slowed down to avoid a pothole - I winced in anger.  Driver stopped to check his cell phone - I ground my teeth.  Driver pulled up alongside an impromptu parade of locals, all decked out in white, twirling fire and beating drums, marching in unison in a glorious celebration of their culture and heritage - I nearly went bat shit crazy from pizza-lust.  I wanted to scream at Driver, "if you don't get this rickshaw moving at blazing speed right now bro I'm gonna kick over one of those kids and start hurling fire balls at passers by.  My pizza is getting cold, my beer warm and my patience thin. Move it, or I swear upon all things holy you will, in fact, be made to lose it." But even 'bad habit Eric' has limits, so instead I said, "oh cool."

We finally pulled into the drive and I raced to my room, slammed the door shut and got to work.  I popped open the Carlsburg and took a long, glorious swig.  I stood proudly over an open pizza box working through two slices before I even took a breath.  Alternating between sudsy goodness and pizza magic, I wiled away the next couple hours in a dizzying haze of joy and grease, sentient only of the doughy ecstasy working its way into my every cell.  Even 'bad habit Eric' dropped the id bat and started to relax.  His unstoppable need for sin now met, he crawled sluggishly back to the dark nether regions of my soul to sleep it off.  After polishing off what was in theory a meal for four, I gathered up the solitary surviving slice destined for my next morning's breakfast and tossed it in the fridge while smugly grinning from ear to ear.

I truly felt like I earned that pizza.  I've been working pretty hard out here on some important ass issues.  That's why I play in Sri Lanka...way out where the dandelions grow.

You Can Find Me In The Club

"This scene is dead but I'm still restless"

We Are Scientists

I'm not what you would call a teetotaler.  I'm more of a whiskeytotaler, in that I will totally finish off all the whiskey in your house if you don't cut me off early enough in the night.  So my shockingly ascetic lifestyle here in Sri Lanka has been a bit of an adjustment for me.  Unlike the East Village, where I lived literally above a bar and seemingly below yet another bar, I have to drag ass about 45 minutes by tuk tuk to get to any sort of nightlife around here.  But last weekend was Halloween, and I'll be a monkey's uncle before I stay home by myself on Halloween. I was gonna hit the club if it killed me.

The world being an ever shrinking electronic village full of overlapping "I went to college with someone you made out with" stories, I was luckily able to connect with a friend of a friend who lives in Sri Lanka not too far from me.  I'm not what you would call smooth, per se, so I basically begged her for a week to drag me out to wherever and whatever she was doing last Saturday night.  She took pity on my poor frowning white face and said she would text later on with plans.  If you've ever waited around for a text upon which your entire evening relies, you too will know the pain of what I like to call the Kübler-Ross Method of Textual Frustration.

Stage 1 - Denial (9:02pm) I started to panic.  I thought, no way am I going to end up alone at home again, not tonight, I totally had set plans and they're gonna be so fun.  I started to draft a text to see if perhaps everything was still a go but put my phone down - no need to sound desperate.

Stage 2 - Anger (9:14pm) Buddha was doing this to me for making fun of his stupid cannon celebration, wasn't he.  This wasn't fair - I'm a fun dude, and when I got a drink with this girl last week we totally had a fun time! It wouldn't be a big deal if I stayed home if that stupid rat wasn't always tormenting me.  God I hate him.

Stage 3 - Bargaining (9:46pm) After a failed rat-hunting expedition and subsequently stomping around the yard to blow off steam, I started getting antsier about the work I should've been doing instead of waiting around.  I told myself "Eric, this is your night off, and if you get to go out you can spend all of tomorrow catching up on stuff."  I'm very convincing, so I totally bought it.  I was gonna protect the shit outa human rights if I got to go celebrate Halloween. Picked up the phone again and crafted a text to check on plans - this time I stopped just short of hitting send - still don't want to seem desperate.

Stage 4 - Depression (10:12pm)  I'm a loser.  This sucks...I'm going to sit at home alone on Halloween while all my friends are going to be out and having the best time ever.  Everyone's gonna have so much fun without me and I'll have to cry into my mac when I look at their awesome facebook photos. Screw sounding desperate, I am desperate - text sent to check on plans.

Stage 5 - Acceptance (10:56pm) Sigh. It's all over...I might as well just face the fact that I'm going to have a crappy Halloween.  I guess I'll go rent and watch the entire Firefly series on iTunes.

Finally I toss on some gym shorts and set down for a horrible evening of self-reflection, and the phone rings.  It's her! OMG OMG OMG we're going out!!!! My metaphorical tail was wagging all over the damn place, and I didn't even mind that I had to put pants back on after going into hibernation mode.  I snagged a tuk tuk as fast as I could and shot up to Colombo to hit the clubs. 

I bought whiskey. I talked to strangers. I played wingman for my delightful hostess when she set her eyes on a friendly Dutchman. And the very best part? I wasn't sitting at home by myself on Halloween!  The clubs were pretty cool, nothing too insane - the usual mix of local dudes hanging out around the edges and a throng of white chicks dancing in the middle of the room all stoked to be on gap year from Leeds or some such nonsense.  We raged until about 4 or so, and I was happy to see that not drinking for a month hardly affected my alcohol tolerance.  The hours pushed on and when my wallet grew light, I rumbled into the parking lot and made my way home.  I'm kind of sad I didn't get to dress up and party with all my friends back home, but hopefully I can make a few new friends here too and make going out less of a big emotional production by establishing a normal social life.

Until then, I can probably count on suffering a few more bouts of textual frustration in the near future.

On the Joys of Living Next to a Buddhist Temple

The third weirdest place I've wandered to while drinking in a suit.

As anyone who's ever heard me talk knows, I like to whine about things.  I generally don't have any serious issues with the subjects of my bitching, for some reason it just makes me feel better to openly rant about whatever minutiae seems to be sticking in my craw at any given moment.  Which is why up until now my retelling of the various forms of noise pollution emanating from the Buddhist temple next door have remained playful and somewhat in jest.

Those days are behind us.  Forever.  Buddhist temple upped the ante, and I'm too stubborn to let them bluff me out of the game.

A couple nights ago, I sat in my hallway area having a little leftover kotthu for the fourth night in a row and enjoying the dulcet tones of monks praying over loudspeakers for hours on end.  After three straights nights of their aural assault, I had grown used to their incessant preaching and resigned myself to doldrumatically accept that I was eventually going to go mad as a direct result of their diligent proselytizing.  I polished off the kotthu and deftly avoided the rat who lives in my kitchen by throwing out the box from the safety of the stairs ten feet away (swish!).  Seeing as how I had to be up at 6am the next morning to get out to Ratnapura for a legal aid presentation, I chitter chatted online a bit and shut down a smidge earlier than normal.  The prayer speaker box kept droning on about this and that, so I buried my head between my pillow and my mattress and hunkered down for the night.  Shockingly, I was able to fall asleep with relative ease for what I assumed was to be a nice peaceful evening of sleep.

Then the Buddhists starting firing off a fucking cannon.

No. No, I'm not exaggerating.  Right around 2am, I stirred from peaceful rest mid-REM cycle to the unmistakable sounds of heavy artillery.  Apparently the prayers weren't reaching people, so the Buddhists decided to squeeze off a few mortal shells to let everyone know they meant business.  Buddha, as well armed as I had ever heard him, trumpeted his call across my bow about 2 more times, each shot shaking the house and rattling the teeth in my skull.   I awoke, confused and scared because I was pretty sure we stopped fighting cannon-firing pirates a long time ago, especially on land and in the comfort of my own bedroom, and quickly ascertained that I was going to die.  Thankfully this allowed me to make peace with my sins and lay back down, assured of my imminent destruction.  Shockingly at ease, I slipped back to sleep to await the inevitable, but the Buddhists decided to spare me.

For two hours.

Then of course, at the ever more reasonable hour of 4 in the frigging morning, the Buddhist monks vaulted a few more pecks of black powder in my general direction, most likely to remind me to support Buddha in the upcoming "Deity's Got Talent" competition airing later this month.  I would later learn that they weren't really firing projectiles, just blasting off cannons full of gunpowder cause they-like-a-da-pop, but it was no less bone-jarring to hear in the middle of the night.  My ears felt as if there were about to bleed.  I was dazed. I was confused. I was downright terrified.  I was so terrified, in fact, that I went directly back to sleep.

At this point you're probably thinking, jeez Eric, you're going to run around like a sissy everytime you spot a rat but you'll shake off cannon fire like it's a light rainfall?  The answer is yes - clearly I am more afraid of a rat scratch than I am of death by cannon fire.  This is because you survive a rat scratch, and then you have to deal with a whole host of annoying shit, like rabies shots, and going to a Sri Lankan hospital at midnight to get said rabies shots.  At least under heavy skirmish artillery I assumed I would be dead before I knew what happened.

That's what I like to call an end game scenario of risk assessment.  Since I am super unlikely to survive, I don't really need to worry about the consequences of my actions.  Like skydiving. If it goes south, I'm probably gonna die so I really don't have to regret my decisions for very long.  This is the same reason you won't catch me mountain climbing. Knowing me, I'll fall about 100 feet but survive, then get pinned under a tree or something and have to cut off my own arm in the woods, hauling my bloody stump for miles and miles through endless forest before help finds me emasciated and dehydrated three days later.

So yeah, when I heard cannon fire next door to my bedroom at 2 am, I rolled over and went back to sleep. Besides, what other option did I have? Go out in the hallway and deal with the rat?

Nooooo thank you.