Story time. A few weeks back I was sitting in AMW’s garage waiting for an invoice for a repair on my car.
While I was sitting there, there was an old guy there in pant straps sitting next to me. I hadn’t seen pant straps in a while. That is probably the reason I even remember this story.
So this guy was also trying to pay for a repair as well but he hadn’t brought enough money. So he was saying he could give them a personal cheque but the cashier wouldn’t take those. Only cash or credit card she said. Then the old guy says “I was the governor of the central bank you know …” smiled and sat down.
In his day a personal cheque would have been good as gold.
Times have changed. I don’t think anyone in Sri Lanka now accepts personal cheques as payment for immediate goods. I mean you could pay a bill or something but you can’t take your goods until it becomes cash.
There is zero trust because people bounce cheques all the time. When one bank kicks you out there are a half a dozen more to take you in. When one company fails you just shut down and make another. There is no credibility, trust or honor in business or individuals.
When I’m looking to buy a long term product or service I wonder if that company will be there in 5 or 10 years to honor my guarantee.
Fix this if you want to move ahead and do ‘good business’.
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Catch up and read part 1 of this guide where I’m documenting my experience of moving to Gold Coast Australia from Sri Lanka.
Now that you are settling in you need stuff for your place. eBay and IKEA are your friends. Also keep an eye out for weekend garage sales.
The Gold Coast City Council website has a ton of information about parks, markets, events etc.
When you get tired of popping burgers those markets come in handy to find curry leaves etc 
Also its much cheaper than supermarkets for fruits and veggies.
Daily needs is a great online shop for buying Sri Lankan food.
One critical thing I should have mentioned in the first post was getting a mobile phone. I recommend Virgin Mobile pre-paid. If you bought a GSM mobile from Sri Lanka just buy a SIM from almost any phone or news stand and top-up on the site.
Virgin Mobile is the only operator that will let you use all your bonus minutes to talk to Sri Lanka. Everyone else has a limit before the full cap amount.
If you are looking to buy a phone try All Phones. There are cheap pre-paid phones you can unlock later or just buy one outright.
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I moved to Aussie just over an year ago from Sri Lanka. Since then I’ve had quite a few Sri Lankans ask me about the move and other information about this place. I’ve tried to help them out where I can. I thought of sharing this information here so it might help out some newly migrating folks.
There was a very real-world blog post on Kottu sometime back about moving here and how it really was as opposed to what migration seems like from a Sri Lankan perspective. If you know about it please comment with the link and I’ll add it as a related post.
Here goes nothing, as with any advice take it with a pinch of salt. Some things are more relevant to the Gold Coast where I live.
Australia is definitely a good place to move to if you are planning to move somewhere. I’ve considered Canada and New Zealand and I think this was the better bet.
Continue reading ‘Moving to Australia – Part 1′
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I’m not really a writer. I prefer to code 100 lines than actually put down a sentence. But the blog thing was hot and I’m glad I jumped in the bandwagon at the time. I was once introduced as;
a fellow blogger that blogs now and then
and that fits me.
I’ve seen more than a few people fold up and shutdown their blogs in the last year or so. I’ve thought about it too but this thing costs me next to nothing to keep and so what if I don’t blog as often.
It’s good for a cubicle code monkey like me to have a public channel, even though only 12 Kottu visitors read me sometimes 
A lot has changed for me in the last year or so. I’ve moved to Australia, and we had our first born here. Well thats 2 things if I say it like that, but its a world of change.
So I think its fair that I didn’t have the time to put down some words in a while, but anyway I’m back.
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Had a weird feeling this Monday morning when not many cars were out and about. Something was not right. Got some sms last night to be alert today. Never got those before. Was almost done getting through the day when we heard the blast in Dehiwala. It was faint and we didn’t think much of it at the time. 5 minutes later we got the news.
Another sad day in Sri Lanka with no end in sight.
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