I bought my first car when I was 20. A nifty little second-hand silver Nissan Primera which had been lovingly keyed down one side. (On occassion I reassured passengers the damage was there when I bought it - no one disliked me that much, I didn't think.) I was fresh out of university and had secured my first proper job in the industry I studied to be in. I was all grown up.
I never needed a car until then - everywhere I needed to go was on a bus route or I got a ride with someone - parents mostly. Life until then was all right.
But then I got a car.
The door opened to a brave new world. A world of freedom, fluctuating petrol prices, car maintenance costs and speed limits my only oppressors. Life got even better. Want to go on a roadtrip? No problem. I have a car. Pop down to the supermarket? I'll drive.
A similar feeling came over me on our second day in Sri Lanka. Negombo, just north of Colombo, to be exact. Two friends and I opted out of the crowded local buses and decided to hire a car for 15 days to drive wherever we wanted around the island.
After some umming and ahhing over our other options (getting a driver + car - more expensive but we don't have to take the risk driving, taking the bus - cheaper, but well, shit) we convinced ourselves hiring a car was the perfect solution. The road doesn't look so busy, plus, they drive on the same side of the road as in all our respective countries - New Zealand, England and Singapore.
Now, I know what you're thinking - and other people have said this to us already - Why would you willingly choose to drive?? Aren't the roads crazy? Etc etc
The short answers are because its easier and no.
To be fair, after several months of not driving though I was a bit apprehensive and not too sure I'd be able to just get back behind the wheel, especially in a foreign country. But things just kind of fell back into place - like getting on a bicycle, as they say.
Now, in my few days of driving here I feel I've become somewhat of an expert in the Sri Lankan road rules. Here are some I've learned:
- Beeping your horn makes everything ok.
- You can overtake whenever you want, just beep a couple of times first.
- Stopping for pedestrians at crossings is completely optional.
- If you're a bus driver, you're allowed to be a jerk who overtakes at any time, anywhere (even when there's no need) and when there is an oncoming car forcing you to go back into your lane, other drivers have to slow down and let you back in. Jerks.
- Also, if you're a bus driver you can go whatever speed you want and you will not get pulled over by police. Jerks.
- Also, if you're a bus driver it is your responsibility to make it as difficult as possible for any other driver to overtake you. Jerks.
- It is ok for bus drivers to stop at any moment to let people on and off without indicating. Jerks.
- Police will pull over a foreign female driver almost every time she decides she wants to drive.
Things haven't been all smooth driving since we got the car - not least because some of the roads are quite terrible and our car can't really handle it. We had a couple of minor problems with our Daihatsu van since we got it. The first was water in the air filter - actually caused by the owner of the company we hired it from. The second was well, my bad. I broke our only key in the drivers side door (because I'm too strong, I guess). At sunset. In a carpark on a hill half an hour away from our guesthouse. (We initially thought the key had broke in the ignition - a much bigger problem).
Luckily some helpful Sri Lankans were around to give us a hand. At first, because I've now been programmed to think this way, I wondered how much they'd want in exchange for helping. They genuinely wanted nothing which was very refreshing, but also made me want to give them something for staying past dark and helping people they had no obligation to help. (Reverse psychology?) (Well, actually, one of the guys asked to have one of our torches because it was dark and he and his wife still had to get back to their village.) I went with one of the guides, who worked at the historical site we visited, in a tuk-tuk to find an auto-electrician to hotwire our car while the other two stayed with the car. We found him about 10 minutes out of town at his house (which I felt bad about, but not as bad as it would be being stranded overnight on a hilltop carpark) and he was just finishing up with someone else who had also had some car problems.
After a bit of fiddling around the steering wheel by torchlight, the electrician was able to get the car started using the part of the key we still had. We went straight back to the guesthouse without even stopping for dinner for fear of more automobile problems. The next morning, dinnerless, breakfastless and hungry, we set about getting a new key cut and putting the steering back together and quickly. After a bit of misunderstanding with the auto-electrician in town, I ended up driving with the son of a cafe owner to find a guy to cut our key.
We found him, sitting on the ground under a rainbow umbrella outside a supermarket with a wooden box of his tools and uncut keys. The man, of about 60 with chestnut brown skin and a stark white prickly beard had been making keys for four decades. He popped the lock out of the front passenger side door and began meticulously filing each ridge of the key and testing it in the lock and filing some more. Like some god creating the perfect partner for my lock, he didn't stop til he got it just right. Then he made another one.
Our problems almost solved we drove back to town to put everything back together and only managed to lose four hours of the day.
Since then we've had no problems with the car (except when our car starts to overheat when we go too slow and/ or up hills) and everyone lived happily ever after.
The end (because this is too long and getting kind of boring).
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