Palm Beach Hotel Colombo

... me. I don't think I have moved more than 30 feet anywhere without encountering one and the airport is like Fort Knox.

When I set out on this adventure around the world, I did not plan to arrive in every single war torn capital on the planet. Filling in the blanks on the map with some places I hadn't been to was my goal and these are all places that are easily linked by discount airlines. It does make for some interesting memories and experiences though ...

... on luggage had to be checked. Emirates flight from Houston to Dubai was smooth but long. Although I was assigned to the bulkhead, the first seating after business class, I was seated with all the mothers with little babies occupying that row. They're seated there because the portable airline bassinets can be fastened to the bulkhead wall. So I was locked in for the flight because the bassinet blocked the only crawl space. And of course the babies cried a lot ...

... on luggage had to be checked. Emirates flight from Houston to Dubai was smooth but long. Although I was assigned to the bulkhead, the first seating after business class, I was seated with all the mothers with little babies occupying that row. They're seated there because the portable airline bassinets can be fastened to the bulkhead wall. So I was locked in for the flight because the bassinet blocked the only crawl space. And of course the babies cried a lot ...

... on February 4th, it was a place to catch up, watch Liverpool FC and encounter numerous army road blocks. Such roadblocks give Colombo the reputation as a 'city under siege' amongst serious foreign journalists, yet in reality they couldn't have been less intimidating. Mostly the soldiers in Colombo - and elsewhere in Sri Lanka - wanted to practise their English and find out which one was the real wife (they tended to guess right - must be Anna Rose's wifey look ...

... the rays of the sun... I wasn't even aware we had made it into Colombo - it came up so quick! We were met by a driver at the Colombo Fort train station who would take us around to do some shopping...Our first stop was Odel which is meant to be Sri Lankas biggest shopping centre .... we quickly made our way through and didn't see anything that really took our fancy -- i did buy a white lace to and a red ...

... at 10pm the exhaust was overpowering, not to mention the odours as we passed near a garbage incineration site, a fish market, and various other wonderful neighbourhoods. On top of that, most of the streets looked pretty dodgy at night; at one point the driver stopped to greet one of his friends down some side street... I thought for sure an attempted jacking was about to take place given the shady environs and the way his ...

... colourful. Unlike other Asian countries I have visited, I cannot see any cultural signs to define Sri Lankans, nothing in their clothes, habits or customs. Only the food is a bit different. It's missing something.......... It took me a few days to get used to the country and I just ...

... be served, the host goes around with a tray and 2 glasses of water and as they pass you touch the tray. Of course we didn't know this and thought we were being offered a drink - but Victor quickly saved us. I think we got away with it!! And today we had no rain - the sun shone!! Apparently it NEVER rains here - obviously I've brought a bit of Belfast with me! Hopefully that'll be it til October!

Arrived in Colombo on Monday 23rd April 2007, not really knowing what to expect. The country has been at Civil War for 20 years now with the Tamil Tigers, & although an official ceasefire occurred in 2004, in the last 6 months the violence has increased again - with nearly 5000 deaths ...

... You are proposing a framework of action? How? All of us are involved in different spheres of action, because we are geographically scattered. Lieve: I understood Eva in different way. I understood that she is asking what happens now with our papers: Is there a general base from which to go on? Astrid: This is meant to be about issues. What is the objective of this session actually? Agnes: It is meant also to synthesize our learnings. Sharon: It is also about our ...