“Punjab,” he answered.

“Ahhh, you’re Punjabi.”

“How do you know we’re called Punjabis?”, he asked in amazement. “You know everything, sir.”

“Please repeat that to my wife,” I said. “Because she doesn’t think I know anything.”

C’mon, Jamie, if you can’t believe an Indian cab driver in Perth, Western Australia, who can you believe?

More than 600 Balinese long-tailed monkeys live here. Their scientific name is the Crab-eating Macaques, but based on what we saw they should be named the Banana-eating Macaques.

The park staff supposedly feeds them sweet potatoes three times a day, but bananas are for sale in the park and damn near every tourist is feeding them to the monkeys. Except Jamie. She saw the greedy little bastards jumping on people to get their bananas and wanted no part of it.

The people in charge don’t want the monkeys to end up looking like me, so prominently-posted signs announce that visitors are prohibited from feeding them snacks such as peanuts, cookies, biscuits, and bread.

Turns out monkeys really aren’t that different than man. They’ve split up into five different tribes that occupy and defend different territories. They often get into territorial disputes, especially when one group has to pass through one group’s territory to reach the stream during the dry season. Secretary of State John Kerry, still desperately seeking any achievement worthy of a Nobel Peace Prize, is rumored to be heading to Bali to begin a marathon peace negotiation process between warring factions of Crab-eating monkeys.

But let’s move on to the monkeys.

This is your basic crab-eating Macaque. Oh, my, they look like such fun-loving, gentle creatures.

No matter how hard I tried, I could not convince Jamie to get any closer than this to these gentle little things.

I saw this monkey sitting on a wall, so I sat down next to him and asked Jamie to take a photo of me next to the monkey. Next thing I knew, he hopped onto my back. Isn’t he the cutest little thing you’ve ever seen?

What an utterly charming little jackanape. How utterly precious. I’m certain he’s tugging on my shirt because he loves me. I wish I could take him home.

Hey, wait just a minute. The little shit is trying to steal my pen. Cool it, Cheetah.

My eye! My eye! I’ve been blinded by this filthy, diseased little son of a bitch. Why didn’t I listen to Jamie when she warned me?

I could have avoided this situation if only I had realized that this carving just inside the entrance to the Monkey Forest symbolizes a blind man screaming in pain.

NOTICE: No eyes were harmed during the making of this blog post.

Good God Almighty, what the hell is that thing on my plate? Everyone knows ordinary beef hot dogs are made out of cancerous eyeballs and left-over hooves and diseased entrails, so I ordered a chicken hot dog on our Air Asia flight between Singapore and Bali. A chicken hot dog just sounded so much healthier than a regular hot dog.

It tasted like crap, so I put some ketchup on it. Which only made it taste like crap with ketchup.

We’re flying Air Asia again from Bali to Perth. Mmmmmm. I can’t wait.

I’d never heard of a tuk tuk until we arrived in Colombo. It’s a kind of an auto rickshaw that gets it’s name from the sound the small engine makes as it chugs down the street: tuk-tuk-tuk-tuk-tuk.

I read that there are a million tuk tuks in Sri Lanka. That’s a huge number, but I believe it because every road, every highway, every dirt path is clogged with them. They’re lined up by the dozens in front of any building from which a potential passenger might possibly emerge. They swerve crazily through the worst rush hour traffic and appear to risk the lives of the drivers and passengers.

Vilmer, the lucky tuk tuk driver who was parked outside the Colombo Hilton Residences at the moment we walked out the front door, knew he had a couple suckers as soon as he laid eyes on us. We told him we wanted to go to the Odel shopping center and off we went. After pulling into Odel’s parking lot, we climbed out of the tuk tuk and I asked Vilmer how much we owed him.

“Nothing,” he said. “You go shopping and I’ll wait for you over there” as he pointed toward a line of competitive tuk tuks.

After four hours we had seen it all. Or at least as much at least as much as we wanted to see. The Government Shops. The White House. The “heart” of Colombo (where the nation was founded). The fancy schmancy new theater complex. The beach. The dark alleys that looked like something out of Indiana Jones. So Vilmer took us back to the hotel, we climbed out of the tuk tuk and I said, “How much do we owe you?”

“Four hours. One thousand rupiahs per hour,” he said. “That will be 4000 rupiahs.”

That’s about 28 American dollars. I laughed because we had been told that the going rate for a tuk tuk and driver is about $5 per day in Colombo and we had only been with Vilmer for half a day.

My normal inclination would be to haggle, but I figured it was my own damn fault for not negotiating a price up front. And I thought, Hell, this $28 won’t make a difference in my life, but it might make a big difference in his.

I peeled off 4000 rupiahs and made our tuk tuk driver’s day. Maybe his month.

More about those dark alleys in the next post.

My Dutch genes kicked in a couple days ago and I told Jamie I was determined to get my hair cut by a street barber in Sri Lanka or Bali. I have only about 100 hairs left on my head and it pisses me off when I have to pay $16 to get them “styled” in Texas or California.

So after Vilmer the tuk tuk driver was finished showing us the sights in downtown Colombo, I asked if he knew a good barber.

Vilmer had a full head of closely cropped hair and I thought, Well, his hair looks ok and it’s tough to screw up the few hairs I have left. Let’s do this.

Vilmer turned his tuk tuk off the main street and we dove deep into Colombo’s network of narrow, serpentine alleyways. After ten minutes or so, he pulled the tuk tuk into a small spot along an alleyway, climbed out, and motioned for us to follow him. It really did look like we were in the middle of an Indiana Jones movie. We didn’t have a clue where we were or where we were going or where we had come from.

He led us into a small shop and introduced us to a young barber who motioned to a chair and indicated that I should take a seat. Next thing I knew, I was getting one of the best, fastest haircuts I’ve ever had. Ten minutes later I was done. Jamie gave me a thumbs up.

I hopped out of the chair and said, “Good job. How much?”

When his haircut was complete, I again asked the barber, “How much?”

Again Vilmer and the barber began speaking in Sinhala. The more Vilmer spoke, the more the young barber furrowed his brow. Finally, Vilmer spoke.

“Five hundred rupiahs.”

That’s equal to about $3.54 give or take a couple cents and depending on the day’s current exchange rate.

Hmmmmm, I thought to myself, that’s about double what I expected this haircut to cost, and it seems to be more than the barber is willing to ask for, and I think I’m paying for Vilmer’s haircut, too, but it’s only $3.50 and he did as good a job as my $16 barber back in Texas, so I paid in full and also gave him a 100 rupiah tip.

These rupiahs are burning a hole in my pocket, baby.

Some people are nice enough to call me quirky while others opt for freakin’ crazy. But Jamie calls me Sheldon because my obsessive/compulsive behavior reminds her of the character on The Big Bang Theory. Some days she says I’m just somewhere on the autism spectrum. Other days she’s convinced that I have full-on Aspergers Syndrome.

She may have a point. I accept that I am an odd man. I have enough quirks in my behavior to keep a team of psychologists busy full time.

I used to have an employee who took it upon herself to compile a complete, comprehensive list of all my strange habits and odd mannerisms. Apparently the list had made the rounds of the agency and other employees had a real hoot adding items to the list. By the time it reached its final form, they had alphabetized and categorized 19 separate quirky habits. Other employees told me that originator of the list had also worked up a dead-on impression of me, but I could never persuade her to let me see it. She also declined to show me the list of mannerisms.

Why do I tell you this? Because we were having dinner at Tea Trails the other night and on the table sat a candle that tilted at an odd angle inside a small lantern. Let’s say it was 5 degrees off center. I endured it as long as I could before I was compelled to do what any sane, completely rational person would have done under the same circumstances — I squeezed a finger inside the lantern and attempted to adjust the candle into a perfectly upright position without burning my finger.

I looked across the table and Jamie was rolling her eyes. Well, in the interest of complete journalistic accuracy, I should note that she actually stopped rolling her eyes when I accidentally snuffed out the candle, and said, “No, seriously. What is wrong with you?”

“The candle wasn’t straight,” I responded.

“And now the candle is still crooked,” she accurately pointed out, “but it doesn’t has a flame.”

A few minutes later the waiter noticed that our candle had gone out, so he whisked away the candle and lantern, re-lit the wick, and returned it to our table.

We continued to eat until Jamie looked at me and said, “You can’t stand it that the candle’s still not straight, can you?”

“Doesn’t bother me,” I lied.

We continued eating.

I fear the woman is some kind of Svengali, mind-reading, spirit witch, because she stopped eating and sighed, “Go ahead. Straighten the candle.”

I did it. I felt better. Much better. What rational person wouldn’t?

OK, the truth is that Jamie deserves a medal for living with me. My obsessive/compulsive habits would probably drive Mahatma Gandhi to violence and yet she merely laughs at them and humors me.

On this trip, for example, I had EVERY detail of our hotels and transportation worked out and reserved months in advance, and color-coded on a series of spreadsheets. I always have to sleep on the side of the bed that has the clock. I must sit on the aisle in airplanes. I won’t sit with my back to the door in restaurants. I must talk to strangers as if they’re my best friends. There’s a website called StatCounter that provides accurate, realtime updates of website traffic and I will stare at the screen and click the refresh button every few seconds for hours until our website traffic reaches a round number. The other night I tried repeatedly to straighten a crooked picture in our hotel room despite the fact that I knew it was nailed securely to the wall. I always order the same meal in each restaurant I go to on a regular basis (at one McKinney restaurant they don’t even wait to ask me what I want. As soon as I walk in the door someone hollers, “Jim!” and my regular order gets to the table almost as soon as I do.)

It’s no wonder I love Jamie. Who else would put up with me?

We had to catch the Rajadhani Express back to Colombo at 3:28 in the afternoon, so our butler arranged for a car to drive us back to the Hatton train station. We spent a leisurely morning puttering around Tea Trails, enjoying a final lunch, and packing our bags. We were eager to get back to Colombo, so we were ready early, sitting in an alcove just off the lobby for our 2:45 pick-up.

Of course, I’m always a little nervous, so I asked the butler if, perhaps, we shouldn’t leave at 2:30 instead of 2:45 just to make sure we got there in time.

“No problem,” he said with a big smile. “The driver will be here at 2:45 and that will give you plenty of time.”

At 2:50 the car and driver still had not appeared, so I went searching for the butler.

“He will be here in five minutes,” he said reassuringly.

“Will that give us enough time?” I asked.

“Oh, certainly. No problem.”

He seemed calm, but little rivulets of sweat were beginning to dampen the hair at the base of my neck. The way Jamie and I recalled the drive from the train station to Tea Trails, it had taken about 30 minutes and it was beginning to look like we were going to cut it perilously close.

At 3:00 I went searching for the butler again. I found him talking on the phone in his small, cluttered office. I could be wrong, but I swear I saw rivulets of sweat beginning were now beginning to dampen the hair at the base of his neck. He turned to me and attempted to exude confidence, but it seemed to be a bit forced to me.

“No problem,” he insisted. “The driver is on his way. You will have plenty of time.”

Jamie and I were far less confident than the butler, so we toted our luggage out to the front portico so that we could load it into the car quickly if and when it arrived.

I looked up just as a Tea Trails car came careening around the corner and sped up the long driveway. It pulled up in front of the bungalow and I threw open the trunk almost before it had come to a complete stop. I tossed in our bags, slammed the trunk, and we jumped in the back seat. I clicked on my cell phone to see the time. Three oh five.

“Drive fast,” I said. “Our train leaves at 3:28.”

And thus began the most harrowing twenty minutes of our lives.

The road between Tea Trails and Hatton has more twists and turns than a season of Game of Thrones. The single lane road is filled with pedestrians, plantation workers, busses, mopeds, trucks, and hundreds — maybe thousands — of the inescapable Sri Lankan canines.

Our driver gunned the engine and sped around one hairpin turn after another, honking his horn to warn any oncoming traffic that we were coming through no matter who may have rightfully had the right of way. He laid on the horn and swerved around anything that had the temerity to slow down in front of us. In fact, he appeared to be steering with one hand while using the other one to honk virtually non-stop.

At one point he turned to us and screamed, “Road very bendy!” I guess that’s Sri Lankan for “one insane hairpin turn after another”.

We had close call after close call, near wreck after near wreck, all accompanied by the incessant warning honks from our driver. Pedestrians scattered to save themselves. Huge busses swerved out of our path. Mopeds hugged the edges of steep cliffs to avoid us. Sonambulant Sri Lankan dogs that hadn’t run in years suddenly leapt like greyhounds out of the starting gate.

I actually thought, So this is how it all ends — in the back seat of a Nissan in Sri Lanka. Jamie later told me that she thought the same thing.

After all that death defying driving, we finally sped into Hatton just as rush hour (such as it is in rural Sri Lanka) began. The streets were packed with people and vehicles and the people were moving faster than the vehicles. Despite the fact that the roads were full, our driver continue to honk and risk all of our lives in an attempt to get to the train station in time.

Jamie and I kept checking the time and muttering, “We’ll never make it.”

Just as we were giving up hope, the driver screamed, “Short cut”, and jetted up a hill onto a narrow alleyway. I’m sure Jamie and I were both thinking, Where is this guy taking us?, when he calmly turned to us and said, “Train station!”

Son of a bitch. It was 3:25. Our train had not yet arrived. We had made it with three minutes to spare.

Yes, we caught our train, but it was the most harrowing twenty minutes of our lives. The wonderful sense of calm that we had experienced in the previous 48 hours at Tea Trails was gone, but it had been replaced by a new sense of wonder brought on by the fact that we were still alive.

I handed the driver all the Sri Lankan cash I had in my wallet. He had earned it.

For the first leg from Colombo to Hatton, we chose a train called the Rajadhani Express, which bills itself as “Luxury on the Move”. This better be luxurious, I thought, because I shelled out a total of 5200 Sri Lankan rupiahs ($37) for two round-trip first class tickets, and rupiahs dont grow on trees.

The Rajadhani Express’ website paints a beautiful word picture:

Welcome aboard Rajadhani Express, your ultimate choice to travel in Sri Lanka with the most comfortable train journey you will ever experience in Sri Lanka.

Step on board our fully restored, air conditioned and wood-paneled coaches and recapture the experience of a bygone era, offering a luxurious, scenic and relaxing way to travel to some of the country’s most enticing destinations.

We believe that the journey is as much to be enjoyed as the destinations. The glamour of this train lies in the experience and in the journey, in the allure of adventure and in the style, comfort and service on board.

Sound’s pretty damn impressive, doesn’t it? And you’ll surely plunk down your money after seeing these luxurious photos on the website.

I’m a freakin’ advertising copywriter. When will I stop falling for this stuff?

No, the car was not the modern, high-tech carriage shown on the website. If I had to guess, I’d say it was 50 years old. Maybe more. It was a bit shabby, but still far superior to the economy cars that were jam-packed with poor Sri Lankans and western backpackers.

But we did get the latest entertainment on the flat screen TV at the front of the car: The most recent Sherlock Holmes movie, a Mr. Bean comedy, and some preposterous Liam Neeson shoot-em-up. Unfortunately, we couldn’t actually hear the any of the dialogue because the noise of the train was considerably louder than the movies’ soundtracks, but this is an adventure, damn it.

Here’s how Jamie described the noise: “It sounds like riding on one of those old wooden roller coasters that carneys take apart this week at one fair and put back together again next week at another fair.”

Perfect.

Truth be told, we didn’t really care that the train wasn’t everything that was promised because of the sights we saw along the way.

We saw rivers and waterfalls and lush rain forests and jagged mountain peaks that disappeared into the mist. Sri Lanka is even more beautiful, I think, than Hawaii.

Right alongside the beauty, we saw horrible, gut-wrenching poverty. You can’t help but feel badly for people this poor, but you also realize that there’s nothing you can do to alleviate their situation.

Despite that poverty, we saw happy, friendly adults and smiling children waving at us from every station, every village, and every road crossing.

We’re experiencing incredible luxury here in Sri Lanka, so it’s probably good that we’ve been reminded of the incredible poverty that afflicts much of the world. It helps to keep us anchored in reality and grateful for everything we have.

The bottom line: The Rajadhani Express wasn’t quite what we were expecting, but that doesn’t mean it was bad. We saw some incredible sights and some incredible people.

And we had an incredible day.

Twenty years ago tonight, I took Jamie on our first date. We both say it was the best first date we ever had. (Of course, that statement means a lot more coming from me because I had gone on a lot more first dates than she had. The problem for me was always getting second dates.)

Here’s one of my favorite stories about Jamie:

I had a client who was very involved in a charity. She invited me, my business partner and our wives to the charity’s big annual fundraiser at Merv Griffin’s Beverly Hills Hotel. It was a Hollywood-ish kind of event and a number of big stars and not-so-big stars were in attendance.

Early in the evening, during the cocktail party preceding the dinner, my partner nudged me and said, “Hey, there’s Louis Nye standing over there all alone. Let’s go talk to him.”

“Sure,” I said to Dan, “Let’s go.”

Of course, we gushed over Louis. He was in his 80s by this time and seemed very happy to be remembered and venerated by two fans.

As we spoke, Jamie walked by in a slinky black dress. She didn’t know who we were speaking to, so she just continued walking to wherever she was going. Louis clutched his heart, looked at Dan and me and said, “Do either of you know her? She’s the most beautiful woman I’ve ever seen.”

We laughed. I called her over and introduced her to Louis Nye. She had no idea who he was, but was embarrassed by his gushing compliments.

A year went by. The annual charity event came around again. We were again invited and attended. It was a wonderful event that raised money for a worthy cause. Merv Griffin got up and told hilarious stories. Carl Reiner got up and told even funnier stories. John Lithgow received an award and told even more hilarious stories. A great time was had by one and all.

After the event ended, we were walking out of the ballroom and who did we pass but Louis Nye and Anita, his wife of more than 50 years. This 80-something year old man, who had not seen Jamie since he spent one minute with her twelve months earlier, again clutched his chest. He turned to his wife and said, “She’s here. The most beautiful woman I’ve ever seen.”

This is not an unusual event. Complete strangers often come up to Jamie on the street and tell her how beautiful she is. Or they tell me how beautiful she is as if I don’t have eyes. I always tell them the same thing:

“She’s even more beautiful on the inside.”

That’s my wife. Happy first date anniversary, Poochie Baby.

The only thing I knew about Wales — literally the only thing — is that the Welsh have their own language. I learned that from a Ripley’s Believe It Or Not comic. The brain’s a funny thing — I have no idea why I remember the two following Ripley items, but I do:

“Ed Ek has the shortest name in the United States” and “The longest place name in the world is a town in Wales named Llanfairpwllgwyngyllgogerychwyrndrobwllllantysiliogogogoch.”

We’re in Cardiff, Wales today and, oddly enough, a local weatherman made news around the world when he announced that the town was a relatively balmy 70 degrees farenheit yesterday.

The English translation of the 58-letter Welsh name is “St. Mary’s Church in the hollow of the white hazel near the rapid whirlpool of Llantysilio of the red cave.”

Just for fun, and to demonstrate how different the Welsh language really is, I used Google Translate to translate a common phrase into Welsh.

In English it was, “Now is the time for all good men to come to the aid of their country.”

In Welsh, it reads, “Nawr yw’r amser i bob dyn da i ddod i chymorth eu gwlad.”

That’s a real language? It looks like random letters throw together for an eye chart. It’s no wonder we’ve been lost ever since we got to town. Good luck reading the street signs.