Sri Lanka is a great country. I love living here. But sometimes you just get rubbed the wrong way. Take for example the traffic jams. I live in Mahara (near Kadawatha) and commute to work by bus. On my way to Kollupitiya have to get through about 3 traffic jams.Most of the time I am ok with this because the main traffic jam is caused by the security checkpoint. Since this is unavoidable in these tense times I just deal with it.
What pissed me off today though was a totally avoidable traffic jam. Some humorless sack of an official had decided that today morning would be the day set for a blasted bicycle race!
Today being a Thursday and therefore a week day apparently had no bearing on the decision. This is forgivable, I mean if they had the race somewhere in Wattala I would not give two hoots. It would also have given the yokels there something to cheer. But NO! Where did the official decide to have it? He decided to have the race right smack through the Kelani Bridge (a.k.a. Aluth Palama), and what better time to have it than at 8.00 AM in the morning when it is full of rush hour traffic.
When did having a bicycle race become of such a high priority that people who actually had to work for a living had to spend more time commuting than actually doing any work? And the worst part are those pickups and motorbikes that precede the blasted cyclists on the road. God save your soul if you get in their way.
It felt good getting that off my chest. Let me just recap what I wanted to say in case you missed it due to all the ranting. At 8.00 AM in the morning all vehicular traffic was held up because a bicycle race needed to go through the Kelani Bridge. That’s the gist of it.
These officials should not piss off people who get online because there can be dire consequences. This blog has an audience of 1 (including me) and I’m sure all of them would like to find out who this official is and show him this,
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(thanks Jahufar)
Machan
these are todays priorities and you need to get them right.
Bicycle races are, along with political rallys, the most important thing in the country.
They may possibly be the only things (apart from making money) that the politicians know, so we must let them do what they do best.
hmmm..even i travel from kiribathgoda to town hall by bus, sometimes..thankfully i didn’t get caught to the all important bicycle race this morning..i hate the traffic jams with a vengeance..the good citizen part of me tries to grin and bear the inconvenience, the fussy female in me wants to scream at them to find a more productive alternative…sucks doesn’t it, especially when you don’t get a damn seat?
@perera
I don’t even want to think about not traveling without a seat. I take a roundabout route that will assure me of a seat just because I loath standing in the bus during the jams
@jack
Yeah machang. I don’t think their heads were screwed in tight enough
I actually passed through where the race starts. In front of the Lakehouse building in fort. It hadn’t started at the ungodly hour I go to school, so I didn’t have to go round it to get to ‘ol Darley Rd.
The guys n the pickup look creepy….
Just so u guys are discussing the crazy stuff these lofty people do, i wanted to know ur views on closing the roads for a certain duration of time for the politicians’ security. Pardon me if you think this is irrelevant for this post.
I don’t know whether u guys have experienced this but it is very usual around the colombo university premises. For the fact that there are a lot of politicians’ residences in the area, the roads surrounding the tummulla junction, especially the Reid avenue, is often closed for certain periods of time during the day. It’s very annoying bcoz it’s not just 3, 4 minutes, but sometimes even for fifteen minutes we have to stay away from the road.
I just wonder whether the security of these corrupted SOBs are that important to suffer the commuters even more than they already do.
Thinking abt writing a seperate post on it.
@niro,
Yea I go through that all the time. I just grin and bear it. I mean I’m sure the Minister in charge of bullock cultivation would be high on the hit list of the LTTE. Those kind of interruptions I just grin and bear. I decided to write about the bike race mostly because it was avoidable. But even the ministers could be a bit more thoughtful in my opinion. How about they start making sacrifices for the people instead of the other way around eh?
Yeah, and I’m Paris Hilton!
Ado if that blasted race was held in Wattala, (consequently holding up all traffic on the Negombo road), I would have killed a couple of those tossers!!
Anyways, fuck bicycle races (excuse the profanity), it happens once in a blue moon; what REALLY causes my excretory system to go into overdrive is when these bastards close half of Colombo just because some two-bit piece of dim-witted shit decides to travel from one shit hole to another! John, vent with me now dude!!
Oh I just noticed that someone has already raised my point… But still I needed to let that out!
hi” dudes,,,,,,
hi” dudes,,,,,,
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journey will start from battaramulla , on cuming 26 th of jan … if u wish to join 0779519606 gv me a call,,,
nirdosh..