Colombo – Capital of Sri Lanka

Colombo: a city with two faces – arrival

The journey from the airport to Colombo is from the north. And from this side, the first impression is quite shocking. Especially when you arrive from a country as clinically clean as Singapore. To the left and right of the road are piles of, let’s say, potentially recyclable items. These range from rusty car and moped rims to mattresses and various kitchen items to all sorts of unidentifiable objects. In short, it looks like a scrap dealer’s yard.

Added to this is the traffic, which at first seems completely chaotic. Chaotic in the literal sense of the word: as a well-behaved German participant in our modes of transport, the only rule you recognise at first is that might makes right. Gradually, the rules become clearer: even as the weaker party, you try to get your way with a fair amount of cheek. This often involves violent steering and braking manoeuvres and, above all, vigorous use of the horn.

The most astonishing thing about this traffic system, however, is that even after three days, we haven’t seen a single accident! Everyone simply expects others to think and act the same way they do. This makes it much easier to anticipate critical situations than in our system of traffic signs, rules, traffic lights, and so on.

Cinnamon Lakeside

In any case, we arrive safely at our hotel, the Cinnamon Lakeside Colombo. The reception is remarkable in that they don’t know us yet – neither our names nor anything else – and yet they treat us like royalty. We get a room on the top floor and we are really happy and satisfied with the place.

We haven’t really moved in yet, but are still exploring the hotel, when we receive a call informing us that there are other alternatives to our room. And I don’t want to bore you any further at this point; in any case, we are allowed to move into a corner suite with its own terrace, which is larger than one might imagine.

The staff are extremely helpful in planning the next day. We had reserved tickets for the train to Ella and had also received confirmation. However, the tropical storm that raged over the island two weeks ago has made the railway line impassable. Therefore, our tickets are no longer valid and we are considering an alternative for the next day.

And, as I said, the hotel staff are very committed to organising a trip for us on the open-deck bus, which will take us to the most important sights in Colombo tomorrow. It remains to be seen whether we will get a refund for the train tickets we have already paid for; here, too, the friendly people at reception are making a lotb of phone calls and at least giving us hope.

And so we spend the rest of the day at the pool bar, in the pool itself, in the extremely quiet and comfortable Executive Lounge on the seventh floor, and back at the pool bar. Everywhere we go, we are greeted with a smile and almost literally open arms. Unbelievable! We feel really comfortable and finally fall asleep relaxed and happy in our much too large room.