Sri Lanka has given me a good break from India, lovely beaches, nice surf and sooo quiet. I spent 2 days in Hikkaduwa, which is the more developed surf beach on the west of the island. Waiters even spoke German and there were plenty of retired people around, so after exploring some of the surroundings I moved to less developed Weligama, which was recommended to me by other surfers.
It was very nice. The guest house was right at the beach in front of the surf spot. Apart from the other 5 guesthouses and the surfers in them there is no tourism, it's a real fishing village. Apart from surfing, sleeping, eating and - well, one night of arrack drinking (which I sincerely regretted the next morning) - there was nothing much to do.
Nonetheless, there was no lack of excitement. I had some interesting experiences with the animal world of Sri Lanka. A massive beetle, around 5 cm long, with hooks on its legs and making the sound of a helicopter refused to leave my bedroom one night - it was 3 a.m. when I finally got it out. The similarly sized cockroaches living in the cracks of the bathroom floor were the real owners of the hut. A python and other types of snakes were put around my neck and an octopus came round during my snorkeling trip (only to end up as dinner of some locals).
Everything would have been so nice if this short excursion to Sri Lanka had not ended with quite a nightmare. Some weeks ago India had introduced a new law that does not allow re-entry into the country within 2 months (based on an incident involving terrorists last year who left and entered the country around 200 times without anyone noticing).
So now, anyone who leaves the country and tries to re-enter it in within 2 months is considered a potential terrorist and has to undergo a series of time-consuming, chaotic procedures that were mainly devised to make money (of course, you have to pay for the privilege to re-enter on a perfectly valid tourist visa) and give people as hard a time as possible.
This, of course, I not did not know and I had not been informed about on leaving the country. I only found out by another German surfer, who had spent 1 day in the Indian High Commission without receiving his re-entry permission and then had given up and changed his travel plans.
After I had heard about this on Saturday I made my way to the Indian High Commission in the capital, Colombo, on Monday early morning since my flight was due on Tuesday 4 pm. It turned out that spending the entire day of Monday and most of Tuesday at High Commission was not enough to get my re-entry stamp into the passport in time. Not to mention that I had only 8 days to visit Sri Lanka, 2 of which I now spent in the most unwelcoming place on the island, the Indian High Commission.
At the end I got my stamp 3 hours too late to catch my plane. The officers had known about my flight (from the moment of my arrival at the High Commission I had told them over and over again that I needed my passport back by Tuesday 12 noon to make it to the airport; in addition they also let down a group 12 elderly Americans who were on the same flight with me, we had begged, pleaded and fought together - in vain). The officers deliberately delayed (!) handing out our passports so we would all miss our plane. It was so obvious and there was nothing we could do.
I cannot describe the scenes that were taking place in that office. People who knew nothing about that law arrived straight from the airport because they had not been permitted to get on their flights, others had important business or family emergencies and were stuck because these officers were too lazy (or too mean) to speed up the process of placing a simple stamp their passports, others only flew to India to catch a connecting flight, which they were in danger of missing.
People were shouting, crying, begging, pleading. It felt like a refugee camp, only that the refugees were tourists on legitimate multiple-entry visas (that was the real joke about it!)
I had to spend a considerable amount of money changing my flights and buying new tickets, plus additional hotel nights etc. Apparently there are complaints about this crazy situation from international embassies, but who knows when this law will be changed... it's India after all.
I just advise everybody who goes to India:
do not leave the country planning to re-enter (at least not within 2 months), do not book any connecting flights over India, you might not be able to re-enter on the way back and miss all your connections, do not try to renew an expired visa (unless you are in your home country - after waiting for 2-3 weeks you will simply be rejected, I have seen this happen to various people during the 2 days I spent in the High Commission)!
So, I am off to the airport now - finally.
Sri Lanka pics:
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