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!