500 rupees (Sri Lanka 2002)

At 6 a.m., I'm standing on the sidewalk waiting for the "2nd and 1st Class" ticket window of Columbo Fort railway station to open. Already the street is bustling with people and 'tuk-tuks', Sri Lanka's noisy-but-efficient three-wheeler taxis. I landed two hours ago and now I'm feeling disoriented after 26 hours of flying in four legs from northern California.

*****

The window opens and I ask the bespectacled clerk for a ticket in the observation coach on the 7 a.m. train to Kandy, the old hill-country capital.
"Window seat?" I ask hopefully.
"No window. Only one seat left, aisle."
"OK, great, thank you."
"230 rupees," he says.
I hand him a 500 rupee note, the smallest I have, my dollars newly changed at the airport. He examines it carefully, squinting as he holds it up to the light, before handing it back.
"No change."
No change?I'm thinking, this is a railway ticket office, I've handed him what's basically a $5 note for a $2.50 ticket, and he can't make change! Then I remember, this has happened to me so often in third world countries, I'm surprised I'm still surprised.

*****

"Need change?"
"Er, yes," I reply, warily, to the scruffy, unshaven young man, maybe 20 years old, who has appeared at my side. I'm still holding the 500 rupee note and watch myself do exactly nothing as he grabs it out of my hand.
"You wait!" he commands and sprints off around the corner.
I come to. What on earth am I doing? I've just been taken for five bucks. Not even taken, I've given it away! What an introduction to this country! I start beating myself up, me, the seasoned traveler, who just watched a stranger help himself to my money. And suddenly I start laughing out loud, enjoying noticing my own stupidity. This is traveling, I tell myself, I'm jetlagged, this is a cheap lesson. From now on, I promise myself, I'll be really careful.

*****

I'm still chuckling, letting myself off the familiar hook of self-criticism, when my new buddy comes running back and carefully counts five 100 rupee notes into my hand.
"You didn't think I would come," he accuses me, tactfully not waiting for my reply, but adding, "You must be more careful with your money!"
I'm still laughing as I put a 100 rupee tip into his shirt pocket--not just for his honesty, but for reminding me that traveling in a country like Sri Lanka isn't predictable, but rather a string of encounters and incidents not easily categorized into 'good' and 'bad' like I do at home.

*****

And as it turns out, the observation coach is almost empty, a gay French couple and a local businessman the only other occupants as we wind up the long green hills to Kandy on the Intercity Express at an average speed of 25 mph.
Ten thousand miles from home and all is well with my world.