After a mammoth 24 door to door journey to Colombo, including a 1 hour transit at Doha, we were relieved that both us and our rucksacks had arrived at Colombo. We were greeted by the driver of our pre booked taxi holding a sign saying "Welcome to Sri Lanka Eva Jolly".
We then spent the next hour on a mad road journey into central Colombo. Imagine the M25 but with everyone hooting their horns, driving amazingly close, not keeping in their lanes and tuk tuks dodging in and out - chaos! What caught my eye though was the amount of shops seemingly selling just the front bits of cars. I initially thought these were scrap yards but I think they were actually selling cars or at least just the front of them!
Arriving at our hotel we were in desperate need of sleep. After a few hours we were awoken by the sound of throngs of people shouting on the streets outside. We looked out the window to see a massive demonstration passing by with hundreds of people carrying placards and shouting. We have no idea why.
Once all seemed calmer outside we set off to explore. We knew that Galle Face Green was the place to see the sun set so we were on our way - and we nearly made it until we reached a blocade and were told the area was closed due to the demo. Maybe best we didnt join a demo here on our first day anyway.
Plan B - to walk along Marina Drive and watch the sun set over the Indian Ocean. This started off well despite the nose to tail traffic jam, fumes and honking horns along Marine Drive. Suddenly everything looked dark, I took off my sunglasses, still everything looked dark. Then the rain started, torrential rain and then the thunder and lightning. Fortunately there was a cute little cafe opposite, timing couldn't have been better, so we dived in for our first cup of Ceylon tea. We found the perfect window seat to watch the sun set and the electric storm play out accross the oceon.
Welcome to Sri Lanka.
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