Snap and Scribble

 

The flight from Singapore to Colombo took about three and a half hours. It was cloudy pretty much all the way and when we came down to land in Colombo, there didn’t seem to be any bottom to the clouds.

As the plane approached the runway i was watching the view from the forward facing camera – on the screen on the back of the seat in front of me. The first i saw of it was a small triangle of lights shining through the fog in the distance. As we got closer, the runway came into sight through the haze, but it soon started to look like we weren’t on quite the right course to land properly in the centre of it.

It was weird and a bit disturbing watching the runway coming towards us but feeling sure that we couldn’t land on it properly. The thought came into my mind that always comes into it at times like that – oh well, if i’m going to die, i’m going to die, there’s no point worrying about it…

Anyway, we probably weren’t much more than ten metres above the surface of the runway when the pilot changed his mind and we soared up into the sky again. It was partly a relief and partly a bit more worrying!

We flew round in a long circle, back out over the ocean and back to approach the runway again. This time the plane was on the right course when we came in towards the runway and the wheels soon thumped down on the tar and we’d landed. No doubt everyone on the plane breathed a sigh of relief at that point.

I’d asked the hotel to send a car to pick me up from the airport and the driver was waiting near the exit, holding a sheet of cardboard with my name written on it. The drive to the hotel took about an hour – partly because it’s about thirty kilometers and partly because the traffic was pretty bad. There are several towns between the airport and Colombo and the road seems to go through the middle of them all. It was dark and raining so i couldn’t see all that much along the way.

The Colombo City Hotel, where i was staying, is in a security zone, as it’s near various government buildings and is right next to the twin towers of Sri Lanka’s world trade centre. We had to go through a roadblock at the end of the street. It was a bit like being back in Kabul again!

The hotel was ok. The room was clean and a decent size and it had double doors out onto a concrete balcony. The only view from the balcony, though, was of the gigantic circular towers of the world trade centre, along with a smaller high-rise building on either side. I got there at about half past seven, which was half past eleven Darwin time, and i was exhausted. I was a bit hungry but i couldn’t be bothered with a proper meal and in the end i got a plate of chips brought to my room. I ate that, checked my email, and went to bed.

I’d asked the guy on reception if the water from the taps was ok to drink and he’d said yes. But i’m not sure he really listened to what i was saying. Anyway, i took his word for it and drank a few glasses of tap water while i was there. The next morning, though, i noticed it said in the hotel information that the tap water wasn’t recommended for drinking. Oh well, it was too late by that point!

I woke up at five or six the next morning and went out onto the balcony. It was still dark and it was very cloudy. The rain had stopped, but everything was still pretty damp. I had a shower and then went out for a walk.

The receptionist told me how to get to the ocean, which i knew wasn’t far away, and i had to walk most of the way around the world trade centre to get there. There were soldiers all over the place, but not very much else at that time of day. There was a bit of traffic around, but where i walked the roads were blocked there were no vehicles.

It was only about five minutes walk from the hotel to the beach, where there was a long esplanade running from the fort area, where the hotel is, to the main part of the city. This is called the Galle Face promenade and was built well over a hundred years ago, in the days when Sri Lanka was ruled by the British. I had a pleasant walk along to the other end of it. The ocean was quite calm, but i’d imagine it sometimes gets so rough you can’t walk along there.

I got back to the hotel about half past seven – which was when the restaurant opened for breakfast. The hotel information folder in my room had a breakfast menu in it and the choices were American, European, or Sri Lankan breakfast. I wasn’t remotely interested in either the “American” or “European” breakfasts, as they didn’t have anything in them that i’d want to eat in the morning. But the Sri Lankan one looked good. The menu said this had to be ordered the previous day before 8pm and i’d told the receptionist that i wanted it – but, again, i’d had the feeling that he wasn’t listening to me.

So when i asked for it in the restaurant that morning, the waiter told me i could only have the other ones. I said no, i didn’t want them. I wasn’t insisting on the Sri Lankan one or anything, as i was already resigned to having to go somewhere else for breakfast, but he said he’d go and ask the chef and it would take about twenty minutes. No problem – i was happy to sit there and read.

The Sri Lankan breakfast was roti, fish curry, and a sort of tomatoey chutney. The roti, which is a type of bread, was made with cocount as well as flour. The food was good, but it had a ridiculous amount of chilli in it. I’ve got a high tolerance to chilli and this really was a bit over the top. It may be normal, but i got the impression that it was done deliberately because i’d made a nuisance of myself by not ordering it the previous day as i was supposed to. This feeling was strengthened by the chef coming out while i was eating and asking if it wasn’t too spicy. He seemed a bit surprised when i said it was good and that i liked spicy food.

After breakfast it was time to get my stuff together and start thinking about checking out and heading for the airport. That morning, the traffic wasn’t so bad and the trip to the airport was a bit quicker. It was light and there was no rain and i could see a lot more of the places along the road. It occurred to me that it had been a bit silly staying in Colombo – when i don’t like cities anyway and when it was so far from the airport. I should have just found a room in a hotel at the beach nearby and stayed there. I’m sure it would have been more pleasant and it would have saved the two hours i’d wasted by going into and out of Colombo. Apart from anything else, one of the main things that had attracted me to Colombo was the view from the plane when we’d landed and taken off previously – and that was was a view of the area around the airport, not of the city!

The queues to check in were phenomenal and once i got through that, the queues to get through passport control were just as bad. It took about an hour and a half to slowly shuffle my way through both queues. And then i was back in the departure lounge of Bandaranaike airport – which had become quite familiar to me this last year.

There were no mishaps with the plane this time and we were soon in the air and on our way to Heathrow. I struck it lucky this time and ended up with two seats to myself, but it was still a very long eleven hour trip!

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