Howdy, y’all! I’m Laurie Ashton Farook and I’ll be your guide on this crazy adventure in Sri Lanka. 😀
I’m a Canadian who married a Sri Lankan, hence the living in Sri Lanka bit. We live in the husband’s parents house in the outskirts of Colombo.
We have four neighborhood monkeys who swing and jump and run along the power lines to get from house to house to bamboo trees. In our previous house, we had three lizards (3 1/2 to 4 1/2 feet long) living on our roof. There are about fifty or so neighborhood bright green parrots in the neighborhood, wandering from tree to tree to tree, along with a variety of other birds that visit. They even frequently keep me entertained when they visit the trees outside my kitchen window while I’m cooking! Life in Sri Lanka is bliss. 🙂
Hello Laurie – You are the link i have been searching for months! What a fantastic website you have created & a beautiful romantic story!
Like yourself i have fallen smitten, head over heels in love with a Sri Lankan man. I live in London, UK & visited Sri lanka for the first time last Aug 09, with my teenager daughter ( i have been a single parent for many years). Dinesh was the waiter in our hotel, being very unassuming & shy he made no advances, but it was love at first sight. I eventually made the first move, very out of character for me.
We dated in secret & i flew back to london broken hearted after the holiday. I missed him so much i flew back alone in Oct 09, spent two wonderful weeks with him. We have spoken twice a day for the past 5 months & want to spend the rest of our lives together.
Please can you help me – advice on how to obtain a residency visa & be able to marry Dinesh & live in Sri Lanka, How did you manage it & go about it? I would be so grateful for any advice,
Once again so enlightenin& beautiful to read your love story.
Hope to hear from you very soon.
Best wishes
Wendy
Obtaining a residency visa for Sri Lanka is no problem if you’re married to a Sri Lankan.
I came over as a tourist. Fahim and I married the same day I arrived according to Muslim law, then registered our married five days later since the marriage registration requires a 5-day residency period for both people. Any marriage registrar can be used.
Since my tourist visa was good for 30 days, I had to apply for a spousal residency visa before the tourist visa ran out. There was no fee for the spousal residency visa. All I had to do was fill out the form and bring my passport, photos, marriage certificate, and a letter from my husband saying he has my approval to stay in Sri Lanka. In reality, Fahim was with me to deal with everything in case there are any problems and also because, naturally, he speaks Sinhala and Tamil if there’s any confusion that needs sorting out. It’s a time consuming process, but fairly straightforward.
I found all the information for both the marriage and the spousal residency on the Internet before I came over, so it should still be available. Theoretically. 🙂
Congrats and good luck! I hope it all works out for you. 🙂