The Adventure Begins! It's been a whirlwind couple of weeks, with us arriving in Colombo on 9/01 after a day in monsoonal Singapore.

Colombo is a full frontal assault to the senses, starting at the airport with an arrivals hall reminiscent of certain Eastern European countries before the Cold War ended but with that indescribable, Eau de Asia. Despite being collected by a driver we were still inundated by the usual barrage of: "me help you carry bags", followed closely by "where you from?", which for some strange reason I answered "London". This response produced instant fossicking around in a pocket from which 10 one pound coins were produced with the request, "you have note?". I then explained that actually we had most recently arrived from Australia - no problem, the other pocket was now searched and 10 one dollar coins were produced! Duncan sensibly stepped in at this stage with the hissed comment that he was buggered if he was going to carry 10 one dollar coins around SL for 9 months, so I politely declined and we boarded the minivan (more of this later).

After a one hour drive which was more akin to a game of "chicken", we arrived at the hotel (very plush) intact but with an irreversible twitch which I don't think will leave until we do. Everyone had warned us about the roads, but you know what it's like you don't really believe it until you experience it yourself. Well it's all true and then some. Officially there are two lanes of traffic, one in each direction. Then there are the illegal overtaking lanes which can happen on either side of the official lane. And then there is the express lane (also illegal) for those that don't want to wait for any of the other lanes, official or not.

Add to this melee children, dogs, old people, "tuk tuks" (3 wheeler mopeds with covers) that pull to a stop whenever they feel like it and buses that prefer to do 80 kmph in the 40 zone and literally you have to run to jump on and off from, and you've got the general drift. Oh and in addition, watch out for the pedestrian crossings which work on the principle of mass - once you've accumulated enough bodies you can usually force the traffic to a standstill as you will now do more harm to them than they can do to you ...... but the funny thing is it works or seems to. I haven't seen an accident yet, despite Duncan informing me that 3,000 people die on the roads in SL annually (cheery thought).

The Cinnamon Grand Hotel where we stayed is in the centre of town and has a shopping centre underneath (from where I'm posting this) and seems to be the hotel of choice for all the NGO's, as it's safe, nice, but not Hilton posh (or expensive). That being said we had our first education on SL hotels - unlike Australia everyone smokes here, plus most of their tourist market is from Germany, Italy and the UK - also heavy smokers. So when I asked for a non-smoking room - well you can imagine where we ended up. A 300 room hotel has 30 non-smoking rooms and whilst the rest of the hotel has been progressively renovated those weird non-smokers can like it or lump it. I lumped. Went for dinner with Tim and Madeleine, Duncan's Lendlease colleague who has been here working for UN Habitat for the last 5 months and his partner - great to get some advice on how to settle in.

So 10/01 and we set off on our whirlwind tour of the country, designed to give us a taste of the country, customs, pluses, minuses and most importantly to view several of the Tsunami affected areas.



Again the drive - 5 hours this time, but our first real taste of SL so after a while you stop screaming and start enjoying the countryside. We stopped at a place called Hikkadua where DY had a surf (small) and I fed puppies under the table of the beachside restaurant (what?). Beaches here for those of you who have been to, or live in Oz, are reminiscent of Port Douglas - without the crocs or stingers. So for us, nothing to write home about, but the Euros certainly weren't whinging given its about 0 degrees in Europe at the moment.

Then back into the car and down to the heritage listed city of Galle. Along the way we really began to see the tsunami impact - not least, signs everywhere giving credit to various NGO's from around the globe for their work. The Japanese seem to have the monopoly on engineering/ roadworks and the Americans on dustbins!!! (which aren't being used). What struck was how erratic the devastation was - 3 houses wiped out - whilst the two on either side remain more or less standing. This was all viewed from a car and we were to get a better view later.

Stopped off at a turtle farm along the way (see photos). The owner has been running it for 25 years and was devastated to lose his "girls" in the tsunami - 4 extremely rare white turtles. He is rebuilding slowly and doing a fantastic job. He buys the turtle eggs off the fisherman for 10 rps each (circa 15 cents) and then keeps them in warm sand for 6 weeks at which point they hatch. Post tsunami he can then only hold them for 3 days - he used to hold them for a month, but those 3 days increase their chances of survival by 50% - all from natural predators. He does an amazing job.


Speaking of animals the feral dog and cat situation is bad, but not as bad as Indonesia. Given that the majority of the population are Buddhist all life is respected, if not actively protected. There is a difference and unfortunately it is the gap between the two that causes the problem - respect results in transport swerving out of the way of animals by the road, however no one bothers to protect them i.e. give the minimum level of care that we expect in the West. Given that there is no de-sexing programme and SL is still a largely agrarian community you can imagine the results. From those animals seen on our travels to date I would estimate 20% should be put down for humane reasons; 30% would be marginal as to why you would prolong life (or cost prohibitive); 20% are malnourished or mange ridden, but will probably have a bearable quality of life; 15% are doing quite nicely; 10% are doing very well and 5% are spoilt rotten pets.

10/01 Galle - for those who watched the tsunami footage there were some particular images of buses swirling around and women in sari's being dragged by the force of water out of a bus shelter - this was Galle. When we arrived we were shocked - it is obviously a major hub and there would have been 60 buses and easily a few hundred people there on the day we drove through. I can't imagine what it would have been like seeing the wall of water approaching, particularly for women and children who largely cannot swim.

We stayed in a fabulous swish boutique hotel called The Sun House, set high on the hill above Galle. An 19thc house belonging to an ex Scottish tea planter. Wonderful, and to date the best food we've had in Sri Lanka (there were several Donna Hay cookbooks in the kitchen I noticed - thank you Donna). Mozzies the size of flies, but we put this nuclear reactive stuff on and didn't have any issues (you know it's strong when it says on the label not to get near any synthetic clothing ...). Galle itself is a unique old fort city - seriously old - 16th c ramparts etc built by the Dutch and a town thriving in the middle of the fort. Several swish hotels here for those of you planning a trip .....