Greetings from Colombo!

Am nw in an Internet cafe in Colombo and it's a cool place with the A/C on. Time:650pm. Charge: S$1/hr.

3rd evening in Sri Lanka. 2days spent in the country. Feeling? Good. Did not have the mood of travelling when i departed on Wed. But as the days went by, it got better. The pple here are friendly, n...just friendly. Warm too. The kids will smile at u. The ladies too. And the guys will say 'hi'. In fact, the kids too. They would even come up specially to ask u "How r u?" Very sweet of them.

Arrived at 9pm on Wed night. Got a cab to Negombo town which is 20mins ride away from the airport.Went to a GH which was recommended in LP but cost USD11 + 10% service charge per night! Too ex! So the driver brought us to another GH which cost USD10 per night. No choice. Who ask us to arrive in the evening?

Next morn, 9/12/04. Walked around to look for breakfast and go to the town centre since we were going to spend one whole day in Negombo. We walked to the beach as Negombo has a long coastline and i saw the Indian Ocean for the 1st time in my whole life! It was amazing! It was only 8am then and the fishermen were still coming in with their catches of the day and many of them were trading and sorting out the fishes. Quite an amazing sight. Seen nothing like this before. Eileen (my travel partner) said that this can be seen in some parts of M'sia acually. But the huge wide sea was so vast... No horizon... Guess u just can't beat seeing one of the 5 oceans of the world on its own!

After a couple of photo shoots, we continued our hunt for breakfast and chanced upon a shop selling bread. Ate two bread that only cost $0.50! Back to the good old 70s...

We walked down a bit further and decided to buy mineral water, where we also chanced upon a Sri Lankan businessman who works in Hong Kong. He greeted us and asked if we were from HK. Thereafter, a short coversation ensued and we found out that he does trading between Sri Lanka, HK, Europe and Bangkok. He was flying to BK that aftn, in fact. He even spoke Cantonese with Eileen, which i understood no word of what was going on. He frequents that particular restaurant and even says i the GH. When he found out our GH ost USD10 per nite, he told us that the one he stays at cost only half of that!

Well, so in order to save money, we actually decided to walk all the way back to our GH, which was 30mins' walk! Checked out, carried our backpacks and wlaked another 30mins BACK to where the new GH was! CRAZY eh? It was close to 11 and the sun was blazing hot! :P Almost 'peng' with my 10kg backpack? N my day pack which weighed alomost 5kg??

After checking into the new GH, we walked to the town which was about 20mins away. Spent the whole aftn roaming the town area and its surroundings. My oh my, we estimated that we have walked almost 30km for the entire day?? Cuz the old GH was abt 3.2km from the new GH, and we walked that stretch 3times! So thast was easily 10km! ARGH... My Chacos sandals are not giving me 'face' aymore. I had 2 blisters at the end of the day and a few patches of skin that are sore.

Lunch was simply rice, with spicy cabbage, a small pcs of fish, some spicy grated coconut and some sour salad. Very challenging as i managed to finish everything but not the coconut and cabbage. SPICY.

Dinner was seafood salad with a generous serving of squid, prawns and tuna, mixed with onion and parsley? Tomato cream soup was good. They cooked it themselves! VERY TASTY! Eileen ate the fried noodles which was equally good. The business at the restaurant was very good. Full house. But they serve really good food. Eileen passed a comment like, "Wah... Every night full house can survive already eh? I also want leh..." That was a comment coming from a busy career woman who yearns to be leading a smple life. Well, that's the way life is here lor... Just full house at the restaurant in the evenings can give u a very good life...

10/12/04: Today. Crossed the street to a prata stall to eat prata. Had it with curry. They have both plain and egg ones down here too. We had some white vermicelli like stuff which is eaten with coconut and brown sugar in S'pore. And i had my first teh tarik here! Which was a bit too sweet for my taste. WAH!!! Everything cost only 60Rs! Less than S$1! What a cheap breakfast.

Left for the bus station on a public bus wich cost us 5Rs. Journey was 30mins. Alighed and looked for the bus to take us to Colombo. A 1hour journey on a mini bus, with very comfy seats and A/C costs us only 37Rs.

Arrived Colombo at about 1130am. Got a 3-wheeler (what we noe as tuk-tuk in Thailand) to take us to the GH we wanted to go. Oh dear, the GHs were all far beyond our budget. The driver was a very patient man who actually brought us to some GHs that he tot may have the rate that we were looking for. But nope, no such luck. He din force us to take the GH when we dun want too. Very good man, i must say. He did not lie to us about the distance and price when we were at the bus station earlier discussing the price. Honest.

In the end, after we went to 4 GHs, it was the last one that cost only 500Rs when we decided to take it. One night only. The place is the Sri Lanka Youth Hostel and oh man.... This gotta be the wort GH i have stayed in. It's old, dark, run-down and no other travellers were staying there. They only have one triple room and all the others were dorms... (but the dorms have cracked walls and some beds dun have mattresses on them) The room was musty and dark and the beds dusty. Only a young lady and an old man were seen in the place. SInce it was only one night, we just took it. 250Rs per person. About $3.50?? Where else can u get tt? Sighz.. Hope i wun get bitten by bed bugstonite lor... CHOY... I can show u guys the photo next time if u want.

Colombo is far too big to explore by foot. We merely walked around the area near our GH and did some shopping. Window shopping? And ate dinner and here we r... The traffic here is atrocious as well, like that of Bangkok. Noisy and polluted. But people here are as friendly. Most can speak rather good english. Not much prob getting around.

We'll be making our way down to the historic town of GalleTaking the train which goes by the coastal route! And the Indian Ocean will be my companion for the entire journey! Can't wait! :))) Till the next update!