Ratnapura

Well, this city and I did not become friends.
After I had to visit the town Ella, as it is named like PaV and my godchild, Ratnapura was on the way back to the Kapurusinge-home. The busride there was really nice. It led through the mountainous area of Ella with its dark green tea plantations and its paddy fields. Then there were forests that looked almost like German ones with conifers and foliage-covered floors. And going down the serpentines, one had a great view, reaching almost as far as to the sea.
But when the bus came to a halt and the headwind stopped, the jungle-climate hit once again (31°C and 84% humidity). And little later the smell of the room I had booked. I spare you the details but I turned around and left (the responsible person on the phone told me something about an “outpost” of the original hotel and that they could give me a better room for double the price). Unfortunately, the next hostels I found didn’t get better and after the third one, I had to come to realize that Ratnapura is the most expensive city I had been in so far while at the same time being the most unattractive.
So, staying in a shabby flophouse: check.
Eating at (also expensive and shabby) KFC because there was no other food place around: check.
Insinuating comments yelled out of several cars driving by: check.
After the hostel-owner had knocked on my door the next morning to ask if I could leave now, I found out that the Tuk-tuk driver of last night had taken a detour, so he could charge me 3 times the price. The “restaurant” next to the gem-museum in which I had planned to have breakfast sold me a dry toast-sandwich and a tea (the only thing they had) for the price of a whole dinner and when I finally found the bus to go back to Panadura, a guy in front of it told me there were no seats anymore. By that time, I didn’t listen to anything people (well, men) told me anymore and got in the bus anyway. And, oh wonder, there was still plenty of space!
I think I got all the objectionable contemporaries they warn you about in Sri Lanka in one and a half days 😉
So my only visit that day stayed the little museum where I got a private tour through the world of gems (Ratnapure means “city of gems” and Sri Lanka is quite rich in sapphires, rubies, topaz, moonstones and others). The exhibition didn’t include a duplicate of the queens’ crown as I had read in the guide book but the guy was very nice, knowledgeable and patient.
Turns out there is something like a “birth stone”, according to the month one was born in. Mine apparently is amethyst.
At the end of the tour the thought crossed my mind, that if PaV was there, we would probably start having a fight now, because he would want to see the showroom to see if they had “something nice for my girlfriend” while I would tell him that I always lose my jewellery in the long run and that I don’t want him to buy things just like that. Obviously, I would find something nice and then he would grumble at me for my (in his eyes) complete incompetence in bargaining.
So I went and got me a ring. Probably for double the price Pav would have.