GO FIGURE

Driving from Negombo to Moratuwa - a drive that takes me through the capital - I have discovered that I pass at least 100 people every minute. This count is based upon timing how quickly I can count 100 people. Therefore, it doesn't include passengers in buses nor people in crowds that are too large for me to count as we drive past. Neither is this an average; I discovered that I could easily count 100 people every minute. Based on this, during the five hours of a return journey to Moratuwa, I pass at least 30 000 people.

The drive from Negombo to Yakwila for my Tamil lessons takes me in the opposite direction, out to rural areas. Here I find that it takes me two minutes to pass 100 people (again, discounting buses). This result has been confirmed by repeated tests. Therefore, in the hour and a half that it takes to do a return journey to Yakwila, I pass at least 4 500 people. Not in the vicinity of the previous figure but still rather impressive, considering location.

Both trips produced a tally of around 70 stray dogs. The Yakwila trip tallied around 35 cows, compared to the Moratuwa trip, which tallied around 40. I found it surprising, even given the difference in lengths of the journeys, that there were more cows to be seen driving in the urban areas than in the rural areas. In fact, the cows out Yakwila way were usually in pairs whereas it was the urban areas where I saw herds. Both trips produced sightings of one goat and one cat.

I think these figures show two things. Firstly, population density in Sri Lanka is on a scale that would blow the mind of the untravelled Australian - even in built-up areas, where the population is still readily visible, as compared to Australia, where the population is usually inside vehicles or buildings. In Sri Lanka, you are constantly reminded that you are never alone. I guess that's what you get for fitting a population about the size of Australia's inside a land area about the size of Tasmania. Secondly, I need to find some new past-times to occupy myself during my many long journeys.