The one good time it is to be a Muslim...

HEy All,

So had a nice day in Sri Lanka, went to a beautiful beach at this place called Mount Laviorous or something like that, it was recommended to me by my 2 sri lankan friends, Sadia and Muhammad so thoght since it was recommended by 2 different people i should go check it out, and it was really cool. was super clean, the sand was so soft, and the waves were amazing i dont think i ever seen such big waves, i think the reason it was so big was that the hotel kinda like dug the beach so its much higher than the sea and when u go into the water its jus below where the actual beach is so ur kinda into the high water straight away!

I went to the mosque today for Jummah and encounted some problems where they didnt allow my camera inside, supposedly as sri lankans believe taking photos is wrong in Islam...ummm not too sure bout that just think people loving making issues, but the mosque which is the grand mosque of colombo was not the greatest of mosques, as it was marble floored so quite hard to pray on, and it was not very well maintainted at all, though it was fairly large and spread of 3 floors and had cool wudu facilities by having these little pools at the entrance that was open for all to wash themselves!

Ok so the subject of this entry, well in Sri Lanka more than any other country i have visited including palestine/isreal i have had to show my passport at checkpoints, anyway one incident they again took exception to my phototaking though this time i wasnt actually taking any photos jus in a tuk tuk with a camera around my neck and i was called in my the police and militry and normally flashing the brit passport would keep me sweet, however not this time, they were being proper problematic, and in the end being a muslim worked in my favour, as there not worried about muslims or terrorist in the common sense but if i were hindu or tamil man they would have kicked off, so its pretty good relief that for once it benefited me in terms of security.
But despite all this i have got to say that Sri Lanka is one of the most religiously diverse countries i have been to, i have seen so many churches, mosques, temples and Buddas all over the place some right next to each other and seems everyone is fairly ok with it, i spoke to a muslim taxi driver who said the problem is mainly between the hindus and the buddhists (which always surprises me as when i originally learnt about buddhism and i learnt to quite a large exten, i always thought they were the most passive guys and who the hell would they fight with cuz its so entrinched in their relgion the sancticty of life so thought man their countires much be so peaceful, however if u c thailand and sri lakna and burma then guess u got to think otherwise) aneway the driver goes christians and muslims are like brothers here and that was surprising to hear as i not heard anyone say that EVER, was kinda refreshing to hear muslims at peace with some people!
Oh and one other thing i may have spotted a trend which again is quite surprising how sleezy and like thrivin sex industry it is here in Sri Lanka, like every taxi driver asks me if i want sri lankan girl or a 'massage' with 'jiggy jiggy' apart from one who asked me if i wanted a massage and i naturally thought oh no not again but then he goes oh but not jiggy jiggy and i was like thank God and then went on a rant on how disgusting the people are here and how i never realised that its such a sex tourism market, and then i thought of how its like thailand but more undercover as people dont know it, but then i thought wow the 2 countires that i have seen first hand massive sex tourism are both Buddhist countires so again jus surprised me i dont think its correlated but just intresting! lol

So anyway im off tomorrow back to Doha and then my sister comes on sunday with my favourite and only nephew Rayan and his father, my brother in law, anyway so gota plan their trip and when they leave im off to malaysia and singapore for new years much to the annoyance of my manager so u probably wont hear from me until then inshallah!

aneway take care

Asif