Sri Lanka - part 1

Something that's been on my mind a lot recently is Sri Lanka. I think the main reason for this is that I'm considering my future, and it's a place I'd definitely like to live in at some stage in my life. So I've decided to do a few posts that contain some of my favourite memories of Sri Lanka. Sorry if I'm repeating myself to anyone.


Here's a handy map. How handy.

I thought the first post should really cover my arrival there in the first place. We ended up going because dad had met a guy called Rodney at a christian business conference. Rodney is a Sri Lankan pastor and evangelist, but before that he worked as a hotel manager. So he offered to organise a tour of the island for our family, and so off we went to South Asia. It was my first time out of Europe apart from a trip to the USA, so this was a real culture shock.


It was a pretty exciting moment as we flew in over the coast for the first time, and all we could see was jungle interspersed with rice paddies. Sri Lanka's airport is just south east of Negombo, if you'd like to refer to the handy map. We landed fine, though it was a bit daunting to realise this was also the main Sri Lankan Air Force base. This meant there were an awful lot of soldiers wandering around with very big guns.

Then we had our first experience of Sri Lankan timing. We were expecting that Rodney would be there to pick us up from the airport, and so we headed out into tropical heat to see nothing. He wasn't there. However there were a lot of taxi drivers who were very eager to drive us anywhere we'd care to go. The only problem was that we didn't know where we were supposed to be staying or where Rodney lived. So for what felt like hours, but I guess was about 30 minutes, we waited having no idea what to do. I'm not good in situations like that, where I really don't have a clue what to do. Fortunately Rodney then appeared, and we headed off to our hotel.

I'll never forget the journey there, as we headed down the main road. There were stalls on both sides for most of the way, and it was weird how they were all grouped together. For instance there was about half a mile where all they were selling on both sides was clay pots. Then we headed off the main road to the hotel, and it was a huge juxtaposition between the poverty we saw there and the comfort of the hotel when we arrived. And so I was in Sri Lanka...