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My last night in Sri Lanka I found myself sitting in a friend’s flat in Colombo, alone, eating instant noodles and having a quiet congratulatory beer.

Congratulating myself on having survived this first leg, made it through, learnt a few lessons and made a few friends. I could barely believe it had been ten weeks since I first packed up my flat, and then my backpack, and set off to this undiscovered country, the geographical location of which I was only vaguely aware.

I had spent the previous ten days on a whistle-stop tour of Sri Lanka, after a wonderful eight weeks in Galle. I had a chance to take in some of the beautiful and varied countryside, meet new people and absorb some of the “must see” sites of Sri Lanka. But the most noticeable part of the time spent hopping from guesthouse to guesthouse were the frustrated tourists.

Time and again I heard tales of children asking for money, tuk tuk drivers over-charging, aggressive taxi drivers transporting their passengers wherever they felt appropriate (usually a friend’s shop). The visitors would be here for a fortnight, working to a budget, and utterly paralysed by the enraging certainty that, however carefully they counted their money, bargained for tuk tuk rides, and cut costs, they were being ripped off. They were right, of course. But what I found puzzling was how much they resented it, and how helplessly they allowed their holiday to be ruined by it.

On seeing a foreigner coming, a Sri Lankan will double or triple his price. This is not so much out of inherent dishonesty as the understanding that the tourist has more money than they do, and is willing to pay over the odds for a perfectly normal service. So why not charge them the price they will pay? For hundreds of years Europeans have been coming to Sri Lanka and misunderstanding basic pricing, paying too much because they still see the price as so cheap. The tourist pays willingly, because they have paid five pounds for something they believe is worth twenty, and the Sri Lanka doesn’t care, because he has been paid 4,400 rupees for something he knows is worth 800. Both believe they have a won. But if the tourist discovers he has paid more than a local, he is suddenly infuriated by the sense of injustice.

Sri Lanka is a tremendously poor country. The luxury hotels and pretty little boutique stores which have sprung up around the country mask this well, but the fact remains that, a waiter in a guesthouse, working twelve hour days, is earning just over £1,000 per year, including tips. And that is a desirable job, for which he will fight tooth and nail, so as not to have to become a labourer, a fisherman, a farmer, etc.

There are of course better paid jobs, and a rising Sri Lankan middle class. But a tourist who arrives in the country has paid over half of a Sri Lankan’s annual salary just to get on the plane. They will spend the other half during their time here, plus some extras on carvings of elephants, cunning treasure boxes, postcards and jewellery. So no wonder a Sri Lankan taxi or tuk tuk driver sees an opportunity to raise their prices; no wonder the restaurants charge three times as much for rice and curry, and guesthouses start sectioning off their best rooms. Then the beggars gather, demanding rupees, school pens, bonbons, anything to receive just a little of the largesse raining down from the indignant visitor’s pocket, as he protests that 100 rupees (56 pence) is too much to charge for a five minute tuk tuk ride, but then takes it anyhow because the amount is so small he is ashamed to quibble.

I have been privileged to get to know some Sir Lankans better than most tourists during my time here and yes, they are shysters and hucksters, frauds and complainers, panderers and thieves. But they are also generous and kind, with a childlike simplicity and enjoyment of life, innocent and moral, family oriented, tremendously curious, locals without prejudiced localism, open to any and all they meet.

A story was told to me while I was here by a friend of a Sri Lankan fisherman who would get up every morning, go fishing, catch a few large fish, sell them in the market, and then spend the rest of the day lazing about on the beach with his friends. A European pointed out to him he could be fishing all morning, selling his fish in the afternoon, and making much more money. The Sri Lankan asked what he could do with the money. “Well – go on holiday, to places like Sri Lanka of course!” The fisherman looked around, shrugged and said: “It seems I have already succeeded.”

Sri Lankans live in a country of incredible beauty and richness, and they do so on a minimal income, surviving because the climate which can provide them with the food and accommodation they need (or don’t need) to get by. They are educated by dictatorial teachers and the shoutings of the gutter press, see wealth and promise as it is presented by the television, and most never leave the village in which they were born.

In Europe we are privileged with learning the nature of difference early in our lives, barely a day passes where we do not see some helpless foreigner on the underground, waving an oyster card and walking on the wrong side, Or we pop over to France for a booze cruise, and suddenly drive on the other side of the road, speak a different language, use different currency. A Sri Lankan from Galle might never have gone as far as Colombo, let alone India. The concept of “difference” doesn’t exist. When a tourist arrives and does not understand the price of a pineapple, or an elephant statue, or a tuk tuk ride, they overcharge because they cannot understand why this person would not know the price. They know it – it is obvious – so why is it not obvious to this white-skinned stranger?

I came to Sri Lanka expecting it to be “different”. But it took me two months before I even vaguely began to understand the mindset of the Sri Lankans I worked with, it was so utterly alien. So I felt a strong sympathy with the two week tourists, frustrated by their own lack of understanding. All I would ask is: come back, give it another chance. I am really glad I was able to.