Being Rich, Saman, Visa and Tourist Police

Generally speaking you cant be ROBBED in Sri Lanka as all non residents are considered fair game to be overcharged (surely a form of robbery), if they take personal items from you it is not thought of as stealing, after all you are rich and can afford to lose and replace such items, and why should something have sentimental value, its only worth what it can be sold for, this attitude is prevalent in many areas of Sri Lanka and even the children know. Because of lengthy legal proceedings, crooked lawyers and incredible difficulties many non nationals choose not to pursue any action and this perpetuates the attitude of its ok to rob as nothing will be done, As the government also imposes a 100% tax on non nationals buying land it is sending a message to the natives that all non nationals are rich and can afford extra charges, (if the government can do it then so can we) locals buying land are only charged a 4% stamp duty but even this is “got round” i.e. a property is sold for 25 million rupees, the paper work will show that the actual house/land was sold for 4 million, the remainder was for extras, furniture, garden plants etc, now the new owner pays 160 thousand stamp duty and not 1 million, the Sri Lankan government must be losing billions in stamp duty from its own people. If you sell your property you cant recover any of the tax paid.

I wander what the attitude of the government would be if Sri Lankan’s living abroad were subject to being treated in a similar manner to how non nationals are treated here, (i.e. if a Sri Lankan in the UK were charged £5 for a loaf of bread) it would certainly cause some major problems if the hundreds of thousands currently living all around the world suddenly returned.

We are very rich, The average Sri Lankan and especially those that prey on tourists believe that all Europeans are super rich and can afford to be robbed. No one can afford to be robbed, We all have various amounts of money and being robbed affects us differently. How much is taken balanced against how much you have is critical for some. Those with a large amount of capital and a good income or pension are more likely able to endure theft than others not so fortunate, I was robbed of everything


Despite the apparent believe that all non nationals are infinitely rich, there must be realisation that that is not the case as many of the beach boy type hope that their victim will become low or run out of money, and thereby secure their ill-gotten gains, indeed many non nationals do give in to such tactics in order to avoid wasting more money.



Visa,

There are various criteria for obtaining a legitimate visa to stay in Sri Lanka and there is plenty of information on the internet explaining visa conditions, also there are visa agencies that can help, as with many people obtaining a first visa I used my “friend” to help, after all that was what he promised to do, help me. He knew the language, where to go and what to do, once the first visa is obtained subsequent visas are relatively easy to get. It was only when I needed to renew my visa that I found out my first visa was dodgy, My first visa had a 100% legitimate “stamp” I was told that the signature on it was a forgery (but a very, very good one!) and the reason stated on the visa (Medical)was not a valid reason to enter the country, in retrospect the bigger picture can now be seen, and this is most likely the intention

“they get me an illegal visa, put land deeds in wife’s name, take every penny, report visa violation to authorities and have me deported, then keep everything in the knowledge that they cant be touched”



Tourist police (wedding)

When we were making the wedding arrangements I was taken to a hire shop who supply the dresses and the jewellery, when it was delivered my bride decided she no longer liked it, the dress was returned to the hirer only to be delivered back to us again, again we returned it and again it came back, when we finally returned it we were asked for full payment, we offered to pay for the one full day we kept it before the first return, again full payment was demanded and the reason was that we had had the items over a 3 day 2 night period, (as they kept coming back) we took the matter to the police and chose to use the tourist police, the hirer informed the police that she had given us preferential treatment and the dress had been taken away from another who wanted it on the same days and she could have got the full amount from them, (bullshite) needless to say the police found in her favour and no doubt the officer got his thank you