Colombo I: Starting in Sri Lanka

Work has been taking me places these days. Brunei has not even closed a chapter, and I'm now told to buy a ticket to Colombo! I wasn't aware that Malaysians need a visa to visit Sri Lanka, but thankfully there's no need to visit the embassy as they an e-visa channel. My flight was on Sunday night, 10:00 PM. I was quite surprised that the flight had it's fair share of Chinese passengers. Mostly were from China, but there were some Hong Kees too. Beside me were a PRC couple. The guy kept nudging into my hands although I let him have the arm rest, and his girlfriend really loved to lecture him. Probably because of them I could not sleep on the flight although I was so tired. Ended up watching "Colossal" to pass the time. Truly a quirky movie. Although we flew for nearly four hours, we arrived in Colombo at 11:00 PM, a 2.5 hour time difference.

Bandaranike Airport looked pretty retro. While the immigration officer processed my arrival, half of his attention was on the YouTube clip playing on his phone. But still, the service was fast (probably cause I had an e-visa). For some reason, the airport's duty free area has a large section for electrical products which I find to be so uncommon. When we walked to the baggage claim area, we were greeted by a big Buddha statue in the typical Sri Lankan style. Hilton Colombo provided the airport transfer for us in a Mercedes. Not bad.



The hotel was pretty nice actually, with a big lounge near the lobby. I was given a room on the executive floor which was on the 17th floor which gave a view of the port. No complaints . By the time I was ready for bed, it was already 3:00 AM in Malaysia. Zzz.