Day 101 - Cochin (Kochi), India to Colombo, Sri Lanka

Day 101 – His.

Today we go to Sri Lanka. It has been a place that Patti has wanted to go since she was a girl. Apparently, she once saw some Sri Lankan writing and thought it looked so beautiful that the country must be beautiful too and since that time has wanted to come here. Not a bad theory and not a bad reason to want to go somewhere. So, we were up at four and off by five. That early in the morning even the roads in India are quiet so it didn’t take that long to get to the airport. It did, however, take ages to get through the security checks. I think I have said before, the Indians are obsessed with security. We had to pass two checks just to get into the terminal building. Several checks later, a grilling from the emigration officials and a couple of hours saw us sitting in the airport waiting for our plane. I consider any airport with a smoking area past the security checks to be a civilised place. Cochin airport goes one better and has rather a pleasant garden right in the centre of the terminal building where you can get a coffee and smoke a cigarette as you wait. Oddly enough though, they don’t sell cigarettes in the duty free. This may have something to do with the fact that  Sri Lanka has no duty free allowance on cigarettes. All very strange.

We are flying Sri Lankan air – which to my mind is one of the better airlines. Despite the flight being only an hour the cabin crew rushed up and down serving us a sandwich and cake snack and coffee. They had just enough time to do it and we landed.

Getting in and out of India has been perhaps, the most tiresome, time consuming and frustrating border crossing we have yet done (With maybe the exception of our arrival in Nepal). Sri Lanka is a different story – we breezed through – though there were quite a lot of signs warning us that smuggling drugs was punishable by death – a little intimidating to say the least though obviously not a problem for us.

As far as travel is concerned i have a single pet hate. That is taxi drivers at airports – I have said this before. Patti, in her infinite wisdom had booked us into a hotel not 10 minutes -but a whole world - away from the airport. The upshot of this is that if the driver is indeed over charging it can’t be by much as the journey is so short. We are staying at the Full Moon Garden Hotel just off the Colombo road. To get to it you turn down a little gated lane and drive a few hundred yards to a very sweet little place that is a quiet, pleasant and tucked away. I was expecting just a hotel room – but it turns out the place we have is a whole clutch of rooms, there’s a living room, a dining room and a bedroom with en-suite in a kind of little cottage amidst other suites that centre around the garden and swimming pool. We are only spending the night here before we join out tour tomorrow but it is really nice to be away from everything. We got a little sleep, took a short walk and lazed by the pool. A little later we are going to see what the hotel restaurant is like. I know it doesn’t seem like much – but even little things are adventures when you are in Sri Lanka.

Day 101 – Hers.

Dinner was certainly an adventure – both culinary and cultural.  I ordered traditional Sri Lankan rice with curry, the vegetarian version to start with.  When it arrived, it was easily enough for three people: a huge serving bowl of rice with six different types of curry, a salad spicy enough to blow even my head off, pickled cabbage and a delicious spiced fruit dish.  Rob ordered a south Indian chicken masala that was also very spicy – not at all altered for Western tastes as they had been when we were actually in southern India.  I enjoyed the heat – I had been asking for my food to be served spicy in India without much success.....Rob couldn’t manage to eat much of his despite having built up his tolerance for spicy food as we have gone along. So much for the culinary adventure......

As we finished eating, a young Chinese woman at the table next to us began a conversation.  She is in Sri Lanka on business – as is her companion who spoke no English.  We told them how much we had enjoyed travelling in China.  The man (using the young woman as a translator) told us how much he wanted to learn English, insisted that we get in touch with him if/when we return to China and posed with us for a photo on his camera.  He really wanted to join up with us to explore Colombo tomorrow, but we explained that we are joining a tour.  It turned out that a good part of his excitement was that he had never met any native English speakers before.  The whole incident just reminded us of how much we enjoyed the Chinese part of our trip – particularly the people; we really must return there to spend more time......