Life at Latitude 10: All Sorts of Haram

Yesterday was our last full day in Sri Lanka. We spent the morning walking through the streets of Colombo checking out what the city had to offer. As we explored parks, drank milk coffees, ate Sri Lanka street stall lunch, and checked out some art to take home for our very white walled apartment, we embraced the sticky-sweat and smiled at our new lover for this city and country. We quickly realized that Colombo is a big-small city -- while it is the capital and has the hustle and bustle of commerce it is able to be walked and explored in about 3 hours time. So, as we looked out our watches and realized we had "done it all" before 1 o'clock we headed back to our hotel to decide how to fill the remainder of our day.

Thanks to the helpful hotel manager, soon we headed out for our afternoon/evening of sin. In Islam, "haram" refers to anything that does not fall within the accepted practices of the Muslim faith. You have a tattoo -- haram. You drink alcohol -- haram. You show your shoulders in public -- haram. You think Kanye and Kim Kardashian's baby is great news -- haram!! But back to our afternoon of haram: soon we were in a tuk-tuk heading into the "don't know if tourists have ever been seen in this part of Colombo" for a 90 minute Ayurvedic ritual. As we had sticky oils poured over our bodies and were rubbed down by traditional Hindi healers, we smiled and reflected on the crazy opportunities we have had in our lives (we also wondered how on earth we would remove said oils from our hair, which we are still working on).

On to the next step of sin -- dinner at a Bavarian beer hall where we consumed large liters, not pints but LITERS of beer. And, to put the haram nail in the haram coffin -- we ordered pork for dinner. Lots and lots of pork. While we know that we are not getting any points in Allah's book, we did fully enjoy our experience and asked for forgiveness along the way.