Transit

Transit days can be tough, draining, trying or adventurous or all of the above. Can you sleep on planes? Deal with uncertain wait times? Find unknown guesthouses in the dark and rain? You get the idea.

The route to Sri Lanka started in Wien, Austria. My Heart and I boarded Turkish Air bound for Istanbul and points onward. The first leg to Istanbul was a short flight but included the best airline food either of us have had in a long time. There was even a flight steward in a chefs hat.

The international transfer terminal at Ataturk airport in Istanbul is loud, crowded and chaotic. The reader boards for departures are a list of the most romantic and obscure destinations, places of dreams and early twentieth century fiction: Katmandu, Smolensk, Baghdad, Kirkuk.... So many places, so little time.

The next leg was Istanbul to the Maldives for a "technical stop" and then Colombo, Sri Lanka. Eleven and a half hours. Get comfortable. Oh, and the electronics were fubar so no movies. Sorry for the inconvenience. Once again the food was good and came too often, but the plane was an old Airbus 330 and had seen many air miles. We ate and dozed, what is there to say.

We landed in the Maldives, a diving destination of islands West of the Southern tip of India. For almost two hours we hung out on the tarmac, off loading the diver-tourists, doing other vague things and once disinfecting the cabin. My One and I covered our heads with a blanket and made out to avoid the disinfectant spray.

After about one hour too many on the beautiful tarmac, we were winging it over the Indian ocean to Colombo, a barely one hour flight into which our Turkish air folks managed to squeeze yet another meal.

Finally, Colombo!! Ah, but as any good traveler knows, there are more parts to the journey. Immigration Man #1: "I am sorry Sir, you have the wrong number on your visa. You must see the head of immigration" Head of immigration: "click click click, here you are Sir, all is good" Back to the counter. "The Big Man says all is good." Grumpy Immigration Man #1: "Stampity stamp. Good day Sir."

Baggage. Ah, just as I mention that I hope our bags make it, our two matching Deuter backpacks come off the line, wet from the rain and open luggage trams. Yes, we have matching backpacks, though purely by chance. It is oh so cute. A little too cute, but it makes us laugh.

Through the non-existent customs, money changed to Sri Lankan rupees (140 R to $1) and past the taxi driver ":No service past here Sir" we found the city bus, exactly where it was supposed to be. Thirty minute later we were at the unbelievably chaotic main bus terminal, an infernal hell of people, seat, diesel fumes and attack busses careening though a space meant for a small parking lot in the States. It was pretty cool!

After multiple tries for a bus south to the Mount Lavinia district where our guest house is, we walked to the train station. In minutes we were on an ancient Sri Lankan train, packed elbow to butt cheek, and lumbering down south along the Indian Ocean. The rain continued to fill the sky, evening came on, and yet we found our station and bodily squeezed (I do not exaggerate) off of the train.

And the last, the final thing: Find the Guest House. It was raining hard, dark as hell, and we were in a foreign land. How hard could this be. We gave in to a tuk-tuk driver and climbed aboard the tiny three-wheeler. Many turns and twists along with two stops to question locals brought us to the Surf View Homestay. Where no one answered the bell. Or the banging. Or the Tuk-Tuk horn (a sound which, when prolonged, can wake the dead or ruin root canals). No one answered. Bastards. No matter that we have an Agoda booking and that they have my $40. No answer.

Now we are where you never want to be: at the mercy of a Tuk-tuk driver. Yes, we need a room. Yes, a small guesthouse please. And so, unloading in the rain, we found the place that you don't want to find, settle for it for lack of better, and then get out in the morning. I smoked a cigar on the veranda, watching the snails crawl on the wall and the geckos hunt bugs. My Heart washed away the trip in a dodgy shower of a dodgy bathroom in a dodgy guesthouse room and then I did the same.

Today is a new day, in nice new digs, exploring the neighborhood of Mt. Lavinia. There is an incredibly loud kids party going on in the next room here at the cafe'. Wifi is hard to come by here, so we take what we can get. The blog posts may be a little less than daily and may come in batches as we have connection. For now the transit is over and the actual journey begins.