Colombo
Trip Start
May 15, 2007
1
17
19
Trip End
Jun 15, 2007
Colombo,
Sri Lanka
Thursday, June 14, 2007
The dreaded day of going home arrives and we check out of our hostel and have breakfast at an Indian place. I have a cheese masala dosa, which is one of the best breakfasts I ever had. :D
After that we head for the airport where we spend some time shopping and spending our last Singapore dollars. We were supposed to fly out of Singapore early in the morning, but due to night flights from and to Colombo (our stopover in Sri Lanka) suddenly being cancelled all our flight times have changed. This is *really* annoying, as we had already booked (and paid for) a train from Paris back to Rotterdam that we are now going to miss because of the change in schedule. On top of that, we were supposed to have a stopover of about 10 hours during the day. We could've chosen to have a 3 hour stopover in Colombo but we figured it'd be fun to check out the city and we opted for the longer stopover. Now with the changes in schedule our stopover is suddenly 14 hours long - and during the night. We don't get a hotel from the airline however as we had already chosen for a long stopover ourselves, which is a royal pain in the ass. It gets worse though! We poke around the internet a bit and find out why the night flights have been cancelled: it turns out the Tamil Tigers have been *bombing* the military base next to the civilian airport a few months ago, and have been *shooting at planes* a few times. For the safety of the passengers they have now cancelled the night flights. I really did not want to know this. Selmer then decides to have a look at the Dutch government's website though and finds out that the Dutch Ministry of Foreign Affairs has actually issued a negative travel advice for all of Sri Lanka because of terrorist activity. So we're not even supposed to go to Sri Lanka! All this we find out the day before we have to fly home, so needless to say I am not very relaxed about having a 14 hour night-time stopover in Colombo without getting a hotel from the airline. We don't really fancy spending the night at the airport though, so we decide to leave the airport and find our own hotel. Right after we left customs there's a whole bunch of travel agents jumping us as soon as they spot us, and one of them arranges a pretty good deal for a hotel close to the airport and a taxi that takes us there. So in the end it wasn't too difficult to find accommodation for the night, but it was pretty annoying we had to take care of it ourselves instead of having the airline fixing us up. Our own fault really, but still. Anyway, so we get to a hotel and it turns out to be rather nice. The owner is quite surprised to see tourists, but is happy to have us for the night. I would've liked to see a bit of Colombo, but by the time we get to the hotel it's getting dark already, so we decide against going into the city (especially with the negative travel advice!). We have a fantastic dinner at the hotel. I'm not really hungry so Selmer just orders a rice and curry for himself, but the waiter comes back with a huge plate of rice and papadums, and about five or six different bowls with curry, veggies and dips. The lovely smell alone makes my appetite return instantly. :D We go to bed early, but I don't really sleep all that well though, I keep imagining Tamil Tigers coming into our room and shooting us or something.
![[06] Island temple](http://images.travelpod.com/users/el_condor/thumbnail.asia_2005.1143129300.picture_005.jpg)
