To Colombo and back in '5' buses

And I thought, changing buses multiple times to get to colombo was only an exercise for people who lived outstation!
Could I have been more wrong?


Requirement: Get to World Trade Center from Malabe and then head back home to Dehiwela afterwards.

Proposed Solution: Take ONE direct bus to Fort from Malabe. Take ONE direct bus to Dehiwela from Fort.

Implementation: A friend was going to Wellawatte so he offered to drop me to WTC, but I being the good soul said "no need, just drop me off at the Galle Road" and luckily managed to get in to Bus 1 - an intercity. Got off near Lake House, started walking towards WTC when I tripped and my shoe straps came off. Since I was going to an important discussion, I didnt want to look like what the cat dragged in so I limped myself to a cobbler who stitched my shoe strap too tight that I couldnt even put it on. Since being punctual is a virtue I faithfully follow I limped to WTC with the unfitting shoe (this time looking a bit better than what the cat dragged in since the straps were in place although too tight)!

5:30 pm, end of meeting, very hungry and in the mood to Go nuts with Donuts! I got on to Bus 2 - a '100' bus and was debating whether to get off at the shop near British Council or go all the way to the shop in Mount and come back to Dehiwela. I decided if I got a seat (which was highly unlikely) I would go to Mount else there'd be nothing to lose.
Well as predicted, I didnt get a seat so I quickly got off at what I thought was the BC bus stop, only to find that I had got off at the one before it. So I limped an entire bus halt and what seemed like another 55 metres to the shop only to find that my favourite 'chocolate surprise' was not available. What an unpleasant surprise!

Walked 55 meters back to the bus stop (now in duplication road) and got in to Bus 3 - a 154. The reasoning was that 154 contained people going only upto Ratmalana, hence, higher probability of getting a seat. WRONG! 154 was going to Kiribathgoda! C'mon, cut me some slack, I work in Malabe and am chauffeured to and from work, I don't know these things! The conductor very politely (of course, I'm being sarcastic) told me so, after the bus turned towards Thunmulla.

Got off, crossed the road, got in to Bus 4 - one which was going to Mathugama (sure to pass mount) and happily (possibly for the first time in the day) managed to get a seat. My happiness lasted 3 halts when the bus conductor came to issue a ticket and I said "Dehiwela ekai". In a very high pitched voice and very very politely  (sarcasm continues) told me that the bus wouldn't stop in Dehiwela and that I should disembark it immediately!

Got off, now near SPM and got in to Bus 5 - this time a 155. Rationale: has to stop in Dehiwela since it goes only upto Mount, and cannot be going to Mattakkuliya since we were already on the Galle road. Can you believe that after all this bus hopping I was still determined to buy donuts?

Well lets just say that it took me 45-50 minutes to get to Dehiwela from Bamba, what with fly over bridges in the making and single file traffic. When I finally got off in Dehiwela at 7:15pm I figured, if I went home now, I'd make it in time for dinner.

Who needs donuts when you could go nuts using public transport?

The worst blogger

What kind of blogger, blogs once a year?
Either I am incapable of rambling anymore (which I highly doubt) or my ramblings are not random anymore. It has to be one of the two. How else would you explain the lack of posts on 'Random Ramblings'?

I do, love to write. I am, very opinionated. And what's more, I have a lot of things to write about. It's just that the thought of the entire world periodically finding out exactly what's going on in my life, is not that appealing. And people ask me why I'm not on Facebook! That'll (hopefully) be a separate post altogether!
Don't other bloggers have the same issue? How do you continuously and consistently write stuff without revealing your personal life? Or is that not a problem to others??

Any hoo, it's Bimal who (unknowingly) motivated me to blog again. I was reading his blog and saw that he had tagged me to write 5 words about what I feel about Sri Lanka right now. Well, I'm not going to do that (I believe my 5 words will not make much sense and thus serve no purpose). But I'm glad I read his blog. It was like a voice calling out to me to get back to a past time I once enjoyed.

Well, here's to attempt #2. Hope it lasts!!

Just when you thought life couldn't get any worse, it gets MUCH better...!

That Forbidden Fruit...

Huhh ...huh..uuh..huhh..uh..huh!

Yep, that’s me panting. No not physically, just mentally. Panting! My brain is panting, my mind is panting, and my own conscience is panting. Life has become a constant marathon, with no time to live!

I remember my life’s motto from a long time ago to just one year back. Live to Eat! (I assure you I’m slim in figure and do NOT resemble a pig). Food! That’s all that mattered back then. Somehow I stumbled upon this sect of people who “worked” for a living, who claimed they “Work to Live”. So I thought I’ll try this cool thing called work, and found out that they were SO mistaken. You don’t work to live, you live to work!

Is it just me and the cubicles around me? Or is this the global trend?

Did I choose the wrong class of work? Or are all classes of work, addictive and time consuming as mine?

Am I just a weak athlete, or is this race really hard to run?

I remember reading about an underwater archaeologist who said, “Diving, is the greatest joy of my life, and now I get paid to do it”. How great is that? This was my idea of work. But no! Maybe I still haven’t found a way to get paid for the greatest joy of my life (eating, with dancing in second place - proof, of my un-piggish figure). I know you don’t get paid to eat, unless you’re the taster to the king, where again, you may jolly well end up being poisoned to death. As for becoming a professional dancer, well, after my first dance competition I learnt that training with someone else can be even more stressful than my live to work routine.

It’s amazing that…

…the last time I went on a 3 hour walk on the beach at 5am was before I started working.

…the last time I sat under a tree and had an endless nonchalant chat with a friend was before I started working.

…the last time I danced 3 hours straight to Sun-FM music (including commercials) was before I started working.

…the last time I learnt to play a song I liked on my guitar (know a few chords, that’s it) was before I started working.

Have you noticed that we even plan our recreation and relaxation now? We plan our time with family and friends, so that we can somehow fit everything in to our live to work.

We now pay for head massages to relieve stress, when all we need is sufficient sleep.

We make appointments for foot care, when all we need is a nice sand scrub and a sea water splash by the beach.

We go to the gym to work out or for aerobics lessons to keep fit, when all we need is to do our own work at home and maybe play some cricket on the road, like we used to.

But we Live to Work, so forget about sleep, beach and cricket, and get professional help!

I some how trace this all back to Adam and Eve. Now if this hungry couple had not eaten that forbidden fruit, we would all still be in the Garden of Eden, eating all the yummy fruits without a care in the world. And Live to Eat, we literally would!

The Holy Bible. Genesis. Chapter 3.

Biking Colombo

I changed best friends again yesterday. No, not the human ones. Nilu, Saandra, Sunimal you guys still rule. Nish and Titto too. Most of the time, the best friend would be the book I’m currently reading (at this point it’s a book called “Founts of Sinhala” and yeah it’s a good read) or sometimes the weekend. But this time it’s the new bike I got. Well I didn’t really get it, and it isn’t really new. This used to be my brothers bike and now it’s at home. It has given me this new freedom to go places whenever I felt like it, explore new roads (Gosh I love doing that) since I don’t drive (yet).

Oddly enough, Colombo is new to the whole ‘chicks riding bikes’ deal (as the males themselves would put it) and therefore, there is no end to the comments and the ooohs and the aaahs. Well you’d think I’d get offended by them, but surprisingly, not! It’s much like tuning in to a silly comedy show, except that you’d have to listen to it over and over again until you knew the script by heart. ;-)

It’s a good thing too, to learn how to control your bike cos when the local three-wheeler drivers see a girl on a bike, they suddenly forget about the hire they are running, and before you know it, where you go is their destination. Bringing you down is their new goal, and they’d follow you for miles trying to knock you down. Not that I want to imply that I rode for miles (maybe a couple), but well, you get the drift. And my new goal is to somehow maneuver the thing to get two of those dudes to collide in to each other and for me to come off unscathed. Or maybe I’ll leave it to Charlie’s Angels or the like, for there won’t be no camera tricks on our old Galle Road.

Two observations, on the whole biking fiasco.

1. It should be made mandatory to wear a helmet for ANY kind of bike. (be it motor or mountain or the plain old ‘push’)
2. Your butt hurts a lot more when you’re on a bike and you’re riding through rocky roads or nice carpeted ones with humps every 10 yards.

So all you folk out there wanting a little bit of childhood fun, borrow the next door kid’s bike and ride away. And if you’re a girl, trust me; the fun will be two fold!