Sri Lanka here we are!

Saturday 15 August 2009

Mr Liew came 15 minutes earlier so panicked cause still not ready yet. Called Deep to tell him I was on the way but he wasn’t picking up. Probably passed out cause he drank 2 bottles of rum at Sid’s before this. Thank God he finally picked up. Arrived at his place at 3.40am.

Met up with Mazlan and the rest of the media group – there were 11 of us. Luckily no weirdos this time. Inaugural flight to Columbo on Aug 15 2009 went off without a hitch. Was surprised they didn’t have a traditional welcome dance like they usually do. We had one on Vientaine’s inaugural flight and Krabi’s as well.

First thing I have to say about Columbo is damn this place is humid! Temperature wise is similar to ours but the humidity is urgh. At least we got our own room at Hilton. Yea! No need to share! And room’s not too bad too. Only thing is they don’t have free wifi. Gotta pay for that. Sucks.

Hilton Hotel Columbo, Sri Lanka

View from my room

Went on a city tour of Colombo after lunch. I can’t say I’m too impressed with the city as it didn’t have anything much that we are not used to. But it’s still alright la.. they have some really nice colonial buildings (although a bit run down), visited a museum where we saw some cool funky olden day urinals, took some pics at a temple (there was a couple taking wedding shots there too), saw a huge ivory-tusked elephant and got ripped off on a tuk tuk ride.

Columbo City Tour

A bride at the temple

Elephant with damn long tusk it's crossing already

Wind at the beach is nice though. Don’t hope to swim coz the waves will drag you right in. Wicked sea they have here in front of our hotel. And we found out that we can’t simply take pictures, especially at tight security zones. The local said we could end up in jail for that. :P

The sea near our hotel

I know they are gonna kill me for saying this but Sri Lankans look just like our Indian people, the southern ones. Can’t really tell the diff. Most speak English quite fluently as their education is covered by the Govn. It’s compulsory to learn it as a second language. They get free medical too. Why can’t our Govn do that for us?! And we are supposed to be more developed than them. Bah.

We had an Indonesian themed dinner complete with Indonesian food and Indonesian cultural performances. I asked Mazlan if he flew us to Sri Lanka or Indonesia :P It was all good though.. Food spread was awesome. Especially the desserts.

Dessert Galore