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.