10 things I learned from Sri Lanka and Singapore trip

Posted by Yeok on May 19, 2013 in Top 10 of everything | No Comments

After 3 weeks in Sri Lanka, and a week in Singapore, I’m now back in Melbourne. I have missed you so much.

It was the first time I visited them both. Although my purpose of visit was more for the family rather than leisure, I gained great inspirations from my trip, little surprises along the way, and overall, I can say the trip has taught me a lot.

The irony of the trip is how extremely different these 2 places are. However, I’m not here to judge which one is better. It might be a little too much to ask for a bit of both, but I can only hope that one day I can live in a place with a good balance of chaos and orders.

Chaos can be a different kind of freedom. After living in a city where there is a punishment for every sort of “chaos”, Sri Lanka has certainly shown me the opposite. I’m not saying either of it is the ideal senario, but if we can have a good balance of both, that would be nice.

This was an extremely old temple in Sri Lanka where they have a huge archive of antiques. Apparently they were given by people to support the temple, however the temple just kept them that way until now.
Stereotyping and class system is pretty much the same thing. I grew up with text book about how bad class system is, and I have never visited a place where it still exist until the trip. To be honest, it’s basically people grouping themselves and dislike each other. It still exists in modern society nowadays with stereotyping and bullying.

A blurry view at a local stall.
I never thought my heart can be moved like this. Going to Sri Lanka can be an emotional journey, especially when you have families there. There are a lot of customs between family members and relatives, one of these customs is the younger generation have to show respect by kneeing down to the older generation and you will get some serious hugging and kissing in return. I came from a very different culture where people don’t even hug each other on daily basis, but somehow, this manner has changed something about me, inside.

At elephant orphanage
A deeper understanding of how the world runs. Growing up in a city didn’t teach me much about how the world runs, because everything is available to us and we take everything for granted. It really helped me to understand the world a little better when I visit a place that’s less “man made”.
Organic food is still easily accessible and cheap in some places. Most vegetables on the road side stalls in Sri Lanka are not farmed. Thanks to the climate, lots of eatable plants are growing everywhere, and the locals are happy with what they’ve got. Many locals are vegetarian so animal farming is not a huge issue either. In fact most of their sea food end up exporting to Singapore and varies other Asian countries.

Strawberry farm in Sri Lanka
Don’t try to control everything. Sri Lankans are best at letting things go the way nature takes. Apart from eating wild vegetables, they utilise water fall for generating electricity, in most places they don’t use air condition, they don’t even have hot water installed in hotter climates, they also use water to wash after using toilet (Surprisingly, once you get used to it, it works much better than toilet paper, almost like taking a shower after every use.)
Make peace with other beings. Ants invading your kitchen? Just remove their food source, and they will disappear in no time. Bees taking over your walk path? Use fire to chase them away, and you can provide them a new home in a quieter place with a bee house. You can even reward yourself with their honey cone. (Bees are disappearing quickly in a global scale, I can’t believe bee killing is still happening in very recent days)
What I miss the most about Melbourne is contemporary, independent art. Singapore is beautiful as it is but there aren’t much independent art & design. I went to the so call “hipster town” Haji Lane, the stocks in local stores are almost similar, as if they are coming from the same mass production source. Later I discovered Tiong Bahru, but we didn’t have enough time for it, let me know if you’ve been there.

My favourate place in Sri Lanka, Helga’s Folly. This is probably the closest I have seen for “independent art scene” during my trip.
I sit way too much for my own good. We walked everywhere during our trip thanks to our inhouse ninja, and then I realised how much I sit in one spot during my working days. I know it’s cold and wet outside right now in Melbourne, but please, if you are not having a flu or anything, at least walk for 30 mins a day, even in the rain. Go to the post office, say hi to a friend nearby, or go a bit further to city for an art opening.

As much as you feel comfortable right now sitting in front of a screen, it’s killing you, softly.
Shower in cool water is awesome. I never thought I could do this either, but shower in cool water on a hot day in Colombo is just perfect. We were sweating non-stop so we took in average 3 showers a day. No steaming mirror, skin feels more comfortable after shower and it’s really good for you. I used to take really hot shower in Melbourne but now I’m happy with slightly warm water in winter, just enough to take the chill out of the freezing pipes.