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Hello everyone! Ok, here I am in Sri Lanka, dodging bombs and the search for the sun! He He! Only joking, well done, half of the half! Yeah, there were some bombs since I got here, but on the whole they were in Colombo and I have to say that I do not feel unsafe at all. Apparently, the cease-fire has officially ended, and if there are military and police wherever you go here. On the front of the sun, it is honestly rain continues during the first week to be here. We then got a nice few days and now his chuck it down again, therefore, in this regard, I am looking desperately for some sun! So what am I doing up here? Well, I will start right to leave Goa. Our taxi stand earlier than we had 5:30 reserved for it and, therefore, was awakened by a hut banging on the door. Bondi, convinced that I had overslept and was late for the taxi, but it turned out to be only 5 hours and thus had a lot of time. We arrived at the airport of departure and the first was to put the bags through an xray before we could check in. Stupidly, I forgot to put my pack in the bag before it went through the scanner, and therefore had to queue twice for the xray! Seems to have had the chance to arrive early, after all! Eventually the bag was scanned and the sticker security in place and joined the queue for registration. When we arrived at the front though, the lady told us that the flight was overbooked and they have left transit passengers in the first place. Would we mind standing aside and they find us another flight indirect if not managed to get on it! Well, after spending an entire day searching for a flight, spending almost 14k ruppees for a direct flight from Goa and have obtained at 5 o'clock this morning to get this flight, I was not having any of it. Oli is the same view, therefore, basically, we told the woman we were not move until we checked on the flight - passengers in transit are not our problem, and if it does we could check in, it is better to have her manager to come and talk to us as we were not moving away from the check-in desk. She huffed a bit, and tried to serve the next in line with the people around us have arrived before another woman behind the desk. Obviously, the manager, but did not talk with us, she simply told the lady to check us! She was not happy and slammed passports with boarding passes! At least we were on the flight if! Although I do think perhaps that our luggage would be sent to timbuktu or somewhere! Anyway, we got to board the plane and a few hours later were in Sri lanka. It was very hot when we arrived, and much more humid than India ..... And significantly more sunny! Outside the airport, we were able to take a bus in Colombo (the airport is a way out of the city) where I could try to find the Indian Embassy to apply for visas. The guys on the bus for stingus tried to double the fee charging more for us that our bags for us, so I decided to go meet them. After 5 minutes of reasoning, I came back with half of the difference between my hands, I was happy with that bearing in mind that the bags did indeed take place a seat and the bus does are really crowded. When we arrived in Colombo, we realised that it was the embassy on Saturday and, if we found it, would probably be closed. So instead we joined a huge queue at the station to get a ticket in Kandy. Oli went off on the hunt for beer and cigarettes and we took in turns, while the other queue of a "looked after" the beer! Little did we realise at the time that his illegal to smoke in the street and probably drinking beer in the street! Nobody stopped us, and even if the rickshaw driver who spoke to us did not see fit to mention this little item! This is the first realization that being a visitor basically means you get away with something. We missed the first train, but we managed to get to one side. It turned out to be an hour slower, so it took about 4 hours to reach Kandy. Before we got on the train, we went to coffee from the station for something to eat. He had a loadof various breads and cakes to choose, so we picked a couple each. This was our first experience of how Sri Lankan eating! There were some ladies who had an enormous shelf stacked in front of them with different breads and cakes! I could not believe that a person could eat as much, but they worked their way through it! What we chose - rotis, has proved to have more chillis and nothing else! It was also our first experience of how the food was spicy! We left the cafe 10 minutes before the train was due to leave another ...... Lesson! In Sri Lanka, you do not get a seat in the ticket! Accordingly, it has come to sit on the package in the door of the train! It was not so bad, and although I have to say that when an open seat came a few hours later, he was more uncomfortable than I had been over the pack in the door! Until it got dark, we benefited from the campaign in passing, which was so nice, after India. The place is so green and lush and unlike India, is not strewn with litter. Anyway, finally arrived in Kandy and finally, after walking miles, we found the Glen guesthouse. She was so clean, it is incredible and mattresses were at least 4 inches thick - luxury! We stayed in Kandy for a few days, checking out the tooth temple, the demand for my visa for india (yes, there was another Indian embassy in Kandy, which was great because it meant I did not have to return to Colombo to seek It) and drink with a couple of Oz, we met in the pub on the first day! I do not want to spend my firstday normally somewhere in the pub, but it was chucking down with rain and it seemed like a good place to take refuge! |