We made it!!! At large in Sri Lanka!

Days 1- 2: Chicago - Colombo - Sigiriya

Finally!!  After MONTHS of waiting, its finally here!!!  Its vacation time!! 

So we left Chicago at 8pm on a Friday night – and finally landed in Colombo, the capital of Sri Lanka at 8.30am on Sunday.  All in all, the journey was very smooth and uneventful – if very long – the first leg was from Chicago to Dubai, then Dubai to Colombo.  We’d treated ourselves to Bizmouse Class on Emirates, so we were certainly traveling in comfort.  I’d been on the wagon for the last 6 weeks, so that first glass of champagne in the lounge was delicious! 

 As we had a fairly long layover in Dubai, we qualified for a free stay in the local airport Meridien hotel, so that was nice and broke the trip up nicely.   We got to the hotel around 8pm and left just after midnight, so just enough time to lie down for an hour or so, and grab a surprisingly delicious dinner at their (rather kitschy) Irish pub restaurant.  I had the Shepherd’s pie and ManpanionTM had a chicken and mushroom pie that was excellent!  The trip back to the airport was easy and it was surprisingly busy for 2am!  Our second flight was just over 4hrs long, so enough time for a film and breakfast before finally landing in Sri Lanka.  Fortunately I hadn’t effed up the visas, so that was all OK – and one of our first impressions of the island was the multiple stores selling household appliances at the airport duty free!!  Want a washing machine at Bandalinke airport with your Toblerone gift pack?  You got it, lady!  Refrigerator?  No problem! 

No eye mask.  Full on spotlight. Proof - if any
were needed - that ManpanionTM can sleep
anywhere, any time, under any conditions

On arrival, after collecting our bags, we were met by our driver and guide for our time in Sri Lanka – a lovely chap called Kingsley.  It was a 4-hour drive from Colombo to our first stop in Sigiriya so plenty of time to watch the island unfold around us.  A few things stood out in my jet lagged brain as we wound our way northwards, up into the center of the island.  One was how clean the island is and how little trash there was littering the roads – a stark contrast to Vietnam and Cambodia.  Also the sidewalks were in good condition too – nice and even and intact – not broken up and uneven like in Vietnam.  This pleased ManpanionTM greatly.   The only thing really littering the road were cheerful looking dogs – loads and loads of them – all pretty much identical and completely nonplused by the traffic zooming past their noses!  It was amazing how they didn’t get squashed given their snoozing place of choice was quite literally in the middle of the road – everyone seemed to accept this as completely normal and just drive around them, not honk their horns or get annoyed. Fascinating. 

Sigiriya Water Gardens

Also very curious was the choice of advertising material on the billboards lining the roads – after about an hour, I noticed there seemed to be a disproportionate focus on – wait for it – cream crackers!!   That and Nippon Concrete.  Why?  Why cream crackers??   It was all very strange – but there seemed to be a cream cracker advertising war going on with at least 4 different brands battling it out for supremacy.  We even had a packet of cream crackers in the little snack box that Kingsley had prepped for us in the car.  I can’t remember the last time I’d had a cream cracker – but there we were nibbling on cream crackers, looking at billboards of cream crackers whilst in the back of the car – yes – cream crackered!! All very lovely.

The countryside itself was as you’d expect – extremely lush and verdant with bushy palms and stringy tall coconut trees, with clusters of bright orange king coconuts clustered at the top.  I’d been obsessively watching the weather and had been a bit worried by the preponderance of little lightening symbols in the 10 day forecast.   We were in the “inter-monsoon” season – so not full-on rain, but not the dry season either (which starts in December).  Basically it was very overcast – which, on one hand was good in that it kept the heat down, but it was a bit gloomy.  Occasionally it would brighten up for a bit and the sun would break through – and then it would cloud over again and then break out into spectacularly energetic rain!

After a couple of hours, we stopped for a restroom break and to get a cup of tea – our first proper cup of Ceylon tea – delicious!  Very light and refreshing – and piping hot!  Just the way tea should be!!  After another couple of hours – the last 20 mins of which were on dirt roads, reminiscent of our bike trip through Cambodia – we finally arrived at our hotel in Sigiriya, the Water Gardens.  By this time, we were so jetlagged and exhausted, we could barely keep our eyes open.  Kingsley, sensing our deep fatigue, suggested moving our scheduled trip for the afternoon – a hike up Lion’s Rock – to first thing tomorrow.  Thank god!  I could barely make it from the car to the room, so going for a hike up a very large rock with 1,000 steps would have been torture!  So, we checked in and were driven by buggy to our villa, where we barely registered how gorgeous it was, before crawling into bed and crashing out.  Waking up a couple of hours later, we decided to skip getting up and going to dinner, instead favoring room service and going straight back to bed!  Tomorrow, after our 14hr nap, vacation can start in earnest!!  Good night!