The Good The Bad and The Ugly

Living in Sri Lanka.

The Good
Watching the wonderful sunsets from our apartment
Looking at the twinkling lights of the ships anchored out at sea
Relaxing on the beach at Hikkaduwa

The Bad
The corruption
The huge number of stray dogs and cats
The poverty

The Ugly
Story time. We just went shopping across the street and ended up with a few more bags then we thought we would. Easy enough, we would get a tuk tuk to take us to our apartment. Chris went to find one and in short time she was back. The bagger loaded the bags, the tuk tuk driver didn't help. He took us across the street which meant leaving the parking garage, turning left and going about 50 feet, making a U-turn, returning about 50 feet and going down the ramp to our parking garage. Again he didn't help unload the bags and just sat there. I counted out 80RS (we figured 50RS was certainly sufficient) and he shook his head and said no, he wanted 100RS (or at least that's what I thought he said). Chris told him in no specific terms what he could do with his request. I being the diplomatic one said I had 100RS in our apartment,I would get it, against Chris' wishes. I told the driver to wait. I got the 100Rs and came down, stifling my anger I handed it to him and he said "No sir, 120RS". At that point, diplomacy went out the window. I went full Drill Instructor on him. Huh? I used to be a Marine Corps Drill Instructor, we have a special way of yelling when we get "upset". The driver called me a few names, I told him to "GET THE #$% OUT OF HERE". One of our splendid apartment guards was in the garage, he started approaching, then he backed off, go figure.

The beloved Colombo tuk tuk driver, always giving Sri Lanka a good name.