Sri Lanka It's Happening

January 15, 2005

There are no traffic cops in Sri Lanka only speed cops. You can drive from one end of the country to another with your horn blaring and you will not be stopped. You can drive at night either with blazing high high beam lights or no lights at all, or go through a red light at any time of the day with out being copped.

Try driving at 75kmph on a 72kmph zone and a cops will descend on your like a ton of bricks. Indeed many cops resemble bricks above their necklines (half baked bricks tht is).

Anyway yesterday I was driving along on a deserted highway (that's what they are called ) at just 96km/h when a cops springs out from behind a tree with a speedometer in his hand.

After collecting the ticket I continued on my merry way at the same speeds. It's very rarely that you can find a road good enough to shift into the 5th gear, who cares if it's going to cost 200 bucks?

The merry way took us along to Nikaweratitiya where we stopped for a picnic lunch by the lake. This seems to be a popular hangout for litterbugs and birds, with Brahmin kites, Open bills, Egrets and Orioles being dime a dozen. It was however a Blue Faced Mal Koha.

The Mal Koha's cousin, the Asian Koel, is a frequent visitor to our garden, in fact a Koel couple have practically become a part of the family we feed them, along with a countless number of Sparrows and Bul-buls. The Koels seem to have settled their differences with the other birds as well

Posted by raditha at January 15, 2005 3:36 AM