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Living overseas

Anyone work or live in Sri Lanka?

4 replies

AmeliaFlashtart · 03/12/2017 11:56

Looking to ask a few questions if so :-)

OP posts:
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HighOverTheFenceLeapsSunnyJim · 06/12/2017 01:09

We are in SL on a 2 month holiday - think it would be a great place to live! Would you be in Colombo?

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soberexpat · 07/12/2017 11:15

It's very close to where I live so I have visited upwards of 5 times. I would say a great deal depends on your job and where you would be located.

It is absolutely the most beautiful place with amazing food and people, but it is also a third world country in terms of medicine, standard of living. It also has awful roads and getting around takes forever, despite a new highway they have built.

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Girlgoneglobal · 08/12/2017 15:24

I lived and worked in Sri Lanka (Colombo) for three years. We left in April this year.

I hated most things about it. And I couldn't wait to leave. I was not the only one.

My advice to most people is cracking place for a holiday - but don't be the person who wants to give it all up and open a beach bar in Mirissa.

If you PM me then I would be happy to answer any specific questions you have. Still in that part of the world, so may not answer tonight as many hours ahead.

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Girlgoneglobal · 08/12/2017 15:28

But in the meantime in case you want a flavour of what I will say I wrote this on a previous thread....

Things I love

Avocados the size of your head and at a price you can guilt-free chuck them away if they are rock hard when you go to bed and black when you get up.

A kilogram of prawns for 50p

My lovely lovely helper

(Some of) my colleagues.

What I hate

Flashing tuk drivers. And I mean willies not indicators.
Bus drivers that strike for their right to break traffic laws, drive like maniacs, drunk, and often kill people without a fine.
Attitudes towards woman that make Jim Davidson look progressive.
Bad drivers, like the worst most stupid drivers with a total inability to make any decision which might make any sort of sense at all.
Failure to take responsibility for ANYTHING
Policeman who at best do nothing but scratch their balls and check their phones and at worst blackmail and torture people
Treating people like shit on your shoe if they are different from you while publicly proclaiming what a tolerant and compassionate society you are.
Horrible treatment of animals entirely at odds with a national and oft-cited religious philosophy.
A misplaced perception on how cosmopolitan a capital city is.
Bad service.
Bad coffee.
Bad food.
Bad wine.
Bad furniture
Ridiculous public holidays. All the bloody time.
The world's most boring airport.
An airport which requires paper copies of everything otherwise it's unable to function.
Laziness.
Clothes which are polyester and think everything a grown woman desires has a glittery disney motif on it.
HSBC debit cards which don't work in HSBC machines
Gormless just about everyone in a customer-facing/decision-making/problem-solving role.
The inability to pack your own shopping and the queues that generate while you stand at the checkout like a lemon on your mobile waiting for someone to do it for you.
The overuse of plastic bags
Watching people throw plastic bags out of car/bus windows when you are driving behind them.
Actually just Plastic bags.
Hypochondria; "wheezes", "paining" and "fevers"
Really bad writing in newspapers; particularly overuse of the words 'nabbed' and 'demise'
Pointy shoes. Pleather shoes
Crap stock control. It comes from the same bloody diary. You don't need different cows for different milk.
Sugar in everything

However everyone who comes to visit me thinks it's a paradise and wants to move here and open a beach bar. Don't be those people!

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