sunday afternoon productivity

I was just telling Shil that I've reached the point in my summer where I would like very much to begin doing something productive with my life, but that Sri Lanka has sapped my drive. However, having spent a good part of the afternoon and evening on facebook writing on people's walls, I find I am actually in the mood to write. So here it is: the summer blog that I promised my friends in university.

We went to Hikkaduwa yesterday but I'd had to come back early, which meant a lot of going up and down by bus. Besides discovering how easy it is to go down south to the beach by bus (two hours at breakneck speed from my house :D) i found almost indescribable joy in the fact that the end of the war means I can use public transport again. Not only does this mean that the gruesome and heart-wrenching stories of explosions in trains and buses have ceased (I hated so very much how agonising it must have been to everyone who can't afford a car, and have to depend on buses and trains regardless of the packaged death that so often lurked within), it means that (hopefully) one can travel with peace of mind. Drivers are still as cheerfully reckless as ever, though.

I've always liked public transport, and that is one reason I wanted to spend a semester in Europe. I like buses and trains at home (trains more so, because the stretch of track in the greater Colombo area always runs parallel to the sea) and the subway in New York is fascinating. The train ride from Princeton to New York tends to be a little too sterile for my liking - I think I've become too used to grime and noise. One of the things that frustrates me most about Princeton is the lack of public transport. Everyone either has a car or knows someone with a car. This is useful when I want two large parcels shipped to Denmark and Sri Lanka, and Kate Miller brings Pete Walkingshaw's car to heave my stuff in, and then circles patiently round the post office because there are are no parking spots on account of it being graduation, while I argue with the inexorable man at the window who tells me the box is too large to ship but I am leaving for Sri Lanka in the afternoon and don't have time to re-pack everything into a smaller box so we come to a compromise when a much sunnier employee offers the ingenious suggestion that he cut the box and re-tape it so that it meets requirements. It is not so useful when I decide I would like to take the bus somewhere, miss it by accident because I have the old schedule and then realise the next 605 comes in another hour. After living in a country where buses arrive every five minutes despite there being no schedule to speak of, this once-every-hour thing is hard to get used to. Also, America is a Very Large Country. It really is a lot easier to get around by car.

But public transport is so much more fun, although yes, so much more sketchy. There are so many more interesting characters travelling by bus - people you will see once and then never again. Isn't that a funny thought? And in Sri Lanka you always get the familiar Types. The bus driver who will always have the radio tuned in to a station playing obnoxious and vapid Sinhala love songs so loud that the bus vibrates. The conductor who shouts out in a kind of idosyncratic song the route the bus is taking, in the faces of all potential passengers, and then hauls them unceremoniously up the stairs and pushes them towards an empty seat. The perverts. The PG-13 Romeo and Juliet couple at the back who sit entwined in each other for the entirety of the journey (are they one person or two?) are also often a part of this ensemble.

The bus-trip to and from Hikkaduwa was more exciting than most, partly because there were eight of us and company often makes things more fun. It was also a journey I'd never taken by bus before and I found it entirely endearing. I liked seeing towns flash by, and seeing towns turn into villages as the bus travelled further away from Colombo. I liked the stretches where the road runs parallel to the sea. I liked the stop that long-distance buses take so that passengers can stretch their legs and get some tea, while vendors selling sweep tickets and sweets took advantage of this opportunity to board the stationary bus and try to sell their wares to sleepy passengers. The trip back home, taken alone, offered a glimpse of the Entwined Couple, and also the Man With The Large and Expensive Phone Who Makes One Business Call In A Loud Voice And Spends The Rest Of The Journey Scrolling Through His Contacts. He is more common than one would think. People with expensive phones in general are also more common than should be natural and normal in a country like ours. But that is a separate rant.

I think I'm going to put off learning to drive...again. Indeterminably.