A Journey to Colombo

Early 2005 saw both me and Anne go down to Colombo (the capital of the island nation of Sri Lanka located in the Indian Ocean) to celebrate our 3rd Wedding Anniversary.

Imagine how excited we were to actually travel outside the country within Asia. For once we resolved not to compare a first world country as we had earlier done on our visits to America and Europe - to a third world country. This time it would be a neighbouring country to India.

First of all I thought - let's check out what kind of cars they had. Anne took it upon herself to compare shopping stores and merchandise available.

Earlier we had flown down to the southern Indian city of Chennai from Hyderabad.

It was from Chennai that we would take a direct flight to Colombo located around an hour and a half from Chennai by air.

We flew in India's best known private airline, Jet Airways. I loved this airline. The tickets were award tickets earned as a result of flying Jet for many years.

They were light years ahead in service over the national carrier Indian Airlines.

For years before that growing up we had heard of Radio Ceylon that aired English music on requests that were mailed in.

And it would be the highlight of anyone's birthday if a request for a song was made to the station and played on a birthday. That was a real privilege. You felt as if the whole world listened to the song as a result of your birthday or anniversary!

And so one fine Thursday morning saw the both of us peering out of a window of a Boeing 737-900 looking downwards at the coast of Sri lanka.

We did hear of that the northern part of the country had some unrest because of political issues. But Colombo is located way down south in the country so hopefully we would be far away from the unrest.

We were excited to be booked at the Ceylon Continental hotel located right on the beach in the heart of Colombo only a few miles from the best shopping that the city could offer.

There is something to say of islanders. They seem to have a flair for life. Or at least that is my perception. Something about their attitude made me feel like they either took life easier than land locked countries or peninsulas or it was the sound of the waves nearby that made them that way.

We were headed later to the USA for a long time. We had heard of the great bargains one could get for branded clothing that were manufactured there and later exported abroad. This was somthing that we could not miss. After all a normal business shirt in the US could cost upto 60$ for a branded shirt.

After shopping it would be sight seeing and some time on the beach to smell the salty air and generally just do nothing at all except chat and maybe have a snack or two before a good sleep.

And boy did we shop...!!!! We started early Friday morning and finally finished the day at around 6 or at least finished shopping by around 6. We then went to a nearby "authentic" island cuisine restaurant and had a fabulous meal of coconut based curries and devilled chutneys with chicken and lamb roast and a variety of rice and flat bread combos. Boy was it delicious. Talk about basic needs of food clothing and shelter!! You could not get farther than that on this trip at least.

The evening at the beach was great and relaxing and we had the opportunity and at least was in time to see a great sunset!!

All to finish off a lovely day!!