TRAVELMAN SRI LANKA: What are Your Aluth Avurudda Resolutions? The Sinhalese New Year in Sri Lanka

It’s the New Year here in Sri Lanka. I was awakened in my dorm bunk by the hostel manager this morning around ten minutes to eight. I wondered why he was waking me for breakfast. It’s usually anytime from 7:30 to 10:00 and I’ve been skipping it many mornings.

“Sir, breakfast is at eight. Would you like to come?” He said, standing next to my bed.

I had fallen asleep around 2:30 in the morning because of a bout of insomnia. All I could think was, “Huh, wha? Why?”

Then I realized it was probably a special New Years breakfast.

The two nights previous to last night, I had the entire dorm to myself. It was my own private hostel. Then Indian guy showed up around 11pm last night. I felt like he was intruding on MY hostel (funny thing is the hostel chain is actually named “My Hostel”).

He said “hello” or something annoying like that when I sat up in bed after the manager woke me. I think I responded with a grunt. Reality is the enemy in my first morning moments, the friendliest comment is like a personal attack on my senses. I stood and went downstairs without looking at him or saying anything.

Three women and a guy were sitting around the tv in the lobby. More people? What is this? Get out of my hostel!

The Indian guy came downstairs. I’d had enough time to regain my humanity so I started conversation and he sat down with me. That’s when I found out he was from Jodpur, India and had been traveling for five weeks (Egypt, Dubai, Sri Lanka). He works for an American Real Estate company. He handles office leases or something. He was a super nice guy. I’ve now made an equal amount of Indian friends in Sri Lanka as I did in India. I told him it was hard in India because I didn’t know if someone was trying to rob me or save me.

The hostel manager, who seemed very happy to provide us this special meal, had us each light the ceremonial oil lamp. It’s something they do on the New Year. Another thing they do is cut off alcohol sales for two days. Their New Year is a two day celebration, fireworks have been going off intermittently all week. Not even the Holiday Inn sells beer.

I’m not sure if it’s a law or a custom. Businesses did the same thing in Mirissa on the day after the full moon a couple weeks ago, but not ALL businesses. A couple restaurants on the beach were still selling tourists alcoholic drinks.

It’s very limited here in general. If you want to buy any kind of alcohol, outside of a restaurant, even beer, you have to go to a “wine shop.” They’re not in every town and they generally look like a bank in the old west with no front doors.

And the beer sucks. Lion, Lion Strong, Carlsberg, Carlsberg strong- that’s it. Oh, and Lion Stout. It all sucks.

Instead of keeping the money behind the bars with the clerks, they keep the alcohol back there. It’s dirty, men crowd around the openings to the tellers like it’s a run on the banks in the depression, ignoring any kind of concept of a line, and you practically have to fight to get to the window. Honestly, it makes you feel so shady that you don’t want to drink.

I know, I’m talking about Alcohol a lot, but it’s fascinating. The New Year in America is all about boozing it up.

I didn’t bother going into the rituals and customs for Aluth Avurudda, I figure you can google it as easily as I did. The breakfast was great.

I wish I knew what I was eating in Sri Lanka. Every time I ask, the local has a hard time explaining it in English. And if they say what it is, the word is so foreign to me that it doesn’t stick in my brain. It took me and the woman I hung out with in Tangelle five minutes of asking and googling to realize we were eating eggplant.

And the food, It’s great! Especially the Sri Lankan breakfast. This is such a great country that so many people, vacationers and travelers, can enjoy. Also, there’s very few Americans here, so they don’t think I’m a jack-ass until I make one of myself.

!steemitworldmap 5.9734 lat 80.4401 long Don’t Forget to Make Your Aluth Avurudda Resolutions, Sri Lanka, d3scr