Columbo

Welcome to Sri Lanka! This is my first opportunity to write; it’s late afternoon of the 22nd in Anuradhapura, in our room at the Ivy lake Hotel. The air conditioner is belting out as much cool air as possible as we’ve just been out in the punishing heat for 4 hours. But more of that later.

We started our latest adventure in our usual style, which is to stay we overnighted at the hotel next to Auckland airport before the long flight the next day. Anne dropped us at Nelson airport and we had food and a couple of drinks in the Koru lounge before our flight at 3.25 pm. Room service for dinner, and we watched some terrible bogan reality TV show, which forcefully reminded me why I never watch shows like that.

Next morning at 10am we started flying to Sri Lanka via a 3 hour and 45 minute stopover in Hong Kong. The first stretch (11 hours), was very comfortable as we’d scored an upgrade to premium economy. Much better food, service, leg room and overall comfort. Hong Kong airport is surprisingly sterile and boring and we couldn’t get into an airport lounge. The last leg to Columbo (5-6 hours) was back to crowded economy, but for some reason I slept easily for a few hours and the flight passed relatively quickly.

We arrived in Columbo (well, Bandaranaike Airport about 45 minutes drive north of the city) about 11:30 pm Sri Lanka time, for a total trip time of over 20 hours. But surprisingly I was feeling pretty good!

A very fast trip through immigration, no customs check, and a driver from the Radisson was waiting to drive us into the city. The hotel was on the waterfront, somewhat to the south, and comfortable and modern. It had been a long day and we were glad to finally get into bed.

Impressively, we were at breakfast by 8.30 am – an excellent breakfast with a lot of variety. I had an ‘egg hopper’ (a sort of bowl-shaped fried egg) with coconut sambal and caramelized onion. I’d slept really well.

After spending far too much time organizing e-sims for our phones – a ridiculously complex process that probably still hasn’t been successful – we used the Sri Lankan app Pick Me to get a tuk tuk to take us to the National Museum at about 11am. There was some wonderful stuff to see and a good overview of the different stages of Sri Lankan history. At about 2pm we walked to a side street about 10 minutes away to a place called Cafe Kumbuk for lunch; I had excellent prawn tacos. Yes, I know after India l’d vowed not to have prawns in a city again, but I couldn’t resist. And the place was great.

Walking back, I realised I’d lost my entry ticket (which also let us in the Natural History Museum) but the guy in the ticket booth let me in to that museum anyway. Which was less surprising when we realised what a hot, claustrophobic collection of rooms and corridors stuffed with mouldy taxidermy the place was. We didn’t last long before making our escape.

Another tuk tuk took us to Galle Face Green, the more brown-than-green stretch of grass on the city seafront where people gather of an evening in Columbo. I bought an icecream and followed my own little tradition by bathing my feet in the ocean – this time, the Laccadive Sea as a matter of fact. We walked the length of the seafront. Stalls sold junk, flying kites for sale on long tethered lines, and schoolchildren laughed in packs. I later learned, as a historical tidbit, a couple of historical political figures died falling from their horses while taking their morning gallops on the Green.

Eventually I haggled with a bunch of guys for a tuk tuk to take us back to the hotel. I had a quick swim in the rooftop pool, then we both snagged a table with a view and enjoyed a few drinks as the sun went down over the ocean. It certainly isn’t as classy a place as the rooftop bar in Mumbai, and the music or clientele weren’t as good (mostly young men and very few women), but still, we had a wonderful view and it was the perfect place to end our first busy day in Sri Lanka.