Turn your lights on

There are random check points set up everywhere you go here in Colombo. What are they looking for? People who are not from Colombo so they can grill them. I know what your asking yoursef, 'isn't the war over?'. Yes, but I'm sure they have to keep safe.

I took a tuk tuk back from shopping and we went through a checkpoint and didn't get stopped. But I realized that they wouldn't stop a tuk tuk driver as he has obviously already established himself in the city.

I have been in a vehicle twice that has gone through check points at night and whenever we approach the driver would turn on the interior lights and we would drive on through. I thought this was a mandatory procedure, nope. It tells the guards one thing, "Hey we're not Sri Lankan!"

Hopefully that didn't go over your heads.

Factoid - Currency

The currency here is the Sri Lankan Rupee. Around 117 per USD. To make it easy we usually just figure 100 Rupees per 1USD.

Here is a cool converter: http://coinmill.com/LKR_calculator.html

Not the best notes around, I don't see any anti-counterfeiting measures built into the paper bills.

In Uruguay a 1000 Peso bill (Around $47 USD) often caused more trouble than anything, especially with taxi drivers. They would take you to a store sometimes so you can break it into something smaller. Here, a 1000 Rupee bill (Around $9 USD), thats dinner money.

Part of Hindu Temple "Sri Shiva Subramania Swami Kovil" - Colombo, Sri Lanka

Part of Hindu Temple "Sri Shiva Subramania Swami Kovil" - Colombo, Sri Lanka
Originally uploaded by gutek

Here is a photo of the Hindu temple that I saw today.

Tour of the city

So I went on a half day driving tour of the city. First impressions? The traffic is by far the worst I have ever seen in my life! We took a small tour bus and I swear the driver had nerves of steel!

Saw some interesting things, would have been nice if I brought my camera (DOH!) but some of the folks who did take pictures will share them with me. There was this Hindu temple that was almost cartoonish in how it looked, hate to say this, it was a little creepy too! We visited a Buddhist temple complete with big golden Buddah's and big old elephant (A real one). There was a couple getting married in traditional Sri Lankan outfits with drummers and dancers. Let me tell you, wow. The bride was barefoot in a ankle length gold colored dress and roses in her hair, she looked beautiful, the groom wore traditional royal garbs, it was pretty cool. We visited a place to buy what I call, more stuff for your house. Some cool things but did I need any of it?

The day finished off with lunch at a nice restaurant. I had some Thai green curry, it was spicy but not overly so.

We work half days on Fridays so when we returned I had the rest of the day off : )