Hello All,
I'm still in Kandy in Sri Lanka. Enjoying the fact that my team won the footy yesterday but nursing a bit of a hangover cum cold. Just finished cycling with my friend Kate who's been with me for the last 5 weeks.
She bought a new mountain bike in Colombo and will sell it back to the shop for 50% less when she's finished.
Will end up costing her about £30 for 2 months. The bike is a cheapy Chinese/Indian with awful gears but she has managed to do 1000m climbs on it with a bit of swearing and the occasional piece of Buddha like perseverance.
It's been weird to travel with someone else for so long. On the plus side I've got someone to talk to, look after the bike If I need to do something involved and someone to take a photos and videos of me
On the negative side I've had to compromise what I've been doing, think about it and worst of all, externalise some of my decisions. It makes me realise quite how free and easy I am a lot of the time and that I don't really put a lot of thought into much things...I just do them.
Overall it's been great to have her around though, I might meet up with her again in the North depending on how we are both fixed.
One thing to point out that I couldn't write on my blog (because her parents read it) is the problems of travelling in Asia as a female. We had a few unsavory incidents when she was with me. Unfortunately this is par for the course in Asia and from discussing it with others, it only seems to be getting worse. We are at a time in history when certain parts of the world still have a massively conservative attitude to sex and casual relationships but at the same time media is throwing out it's version of gratuitous Western female attitudes on TV, Film, the internet and even in the news.
I've just responded to a post on the FB Warmshowers group. It's about how Couchsurfing inparticular in India has been seen by Indian men as the perfect way to get in touch with more liberal minded Indian women as well as travelling females in the hope of a date. It's put off a lot of females from using the site. I've had first hand experience of this from my time in India. It's not really effected me with who I have contacted because the women can see I'm genuine from my profile and revues but it's a shame so many are frightened to go on now.
Another example of this cross pollination of views in this particular moment of time was when I stayed at a hotel here in Arugam Bay. A German woman late 20's was travelling by herself and was staying in the room next to me. We struck up a conversation straight away as is often the way of people travelling on there own. One of the young guys who worked at the hotel became jealous and kept trying to separate us.
She told me she had had the following conversation with him.
Him: So in Europe Girls have different boyfriends before they get married?
Her: Yes, they might.
Him: And sometimes they sleep with them.
Her: Yes, they might.
Him: So will you sleep with me
Her: No
Him: Why not?
and so it went on. These types of conversations are so common, and whilst you cant blame a man or a woman for chatting someone up, the total lack of understanding of how things work makes you realise how it can filter down into more unsavory situations.
This is just yet another reason to add to my long list about how lucky I am to be able to do the things I do.
My friend Kate has just cycled on her own for a few days to meet up with a female friend and I've sent her to the same hotel. But explained to her what happened! The German woman told him the truth so as to educate him and I'm sure Kate will do the same. But it's a very long battle.
Ladies I salute you
In other news...
I've added a VIDEOS page to my blog. I'll never get round to editing them into a film in the near future so I've just enabled the share facility on googledrive where I back-up to.
Feel free to have a look if you are interested. I've starred the ones that might be a bit more interesting. A lot of them are dull as it's just easier to upload everything.
The ramblings of a madman overlay many of them!
You have been warned!!
http://batmantorobben.com/videos/
