After arriving at Bangkok airport for a 4 hour layover, one shocking revelation struck me to the core about the flight – there had been no crying babies. The last few flights I’ve have were non-stop hyena babies screaming, but this flight was blessed by the ancient Greek god of aeroplanes, Ares.

I had flown with Qantas before, this being the first time I’d flown this them internationally. There are two truths to Qantas. Firstly, their food was great. A honey soy chicken for dinner, a Weiss mango bar for a snack (I purposely brought some Lacteeze tablets for moments like this), and finally some pork buns before touch down. Really quality food.

The second truth is Qantas is where air hostesses go to retire. It’s all true.

Arriving in Colombo airport was not as chaotic as I was expecting. I had even booked a driver for half an hour after arrival time as I didn’t imagine we’d breeze though, the only drama being some English guy was refused entry because his visa had expired and he had to say goodbye to his Sri Lankan girlfriend while the thoroughly unamused customs officer kept glancing at them.

It was 11pm on arrival, so I’m guessing the day time would be far much worse.

After getting picked up it took us about 45mins to get to the hotel. And this guy was speeding like a Formula 1 driver on crack. The speed signs on the highway were saying 85km/h, but he had some crazy suped up Sri Lankan knockoff of a Toyota (the badge logo looked like someone had melted the Toyota badge and figured that would be enough to avoid a lawsuit) and the odometer was in miles per hour rather than Km/h. The fact we going at around 88 miles an hour made me slightly suspect we much be going way over the speed limit, and at any moment now the flux capacitor will kick in and I’m back in 1988.

Checking in at the hotel, and how wonderfully helpful the guy was, and then thinking how nice every Sri Lankan has been in the first hour of arriving in the country, is this what I’m going to expect? For the most part after these couple of days the answer is a resounding yes. I can’t stress how insanely nice everyone is, despite trying to kill each other on the road (more on that in a sec), and only having to deal with a handful of con-man (more on that later).

Sooo the motorist. There’s no love lost here, kill or be killed. It might just be Colombo, as I’ve heard is particularly bad here, and I’ve already seen one motorcyclist get collected by a tuk-tuk. The traffic here is insane, and I’ve seen some horror traffic and insane driving, but not like this. There’s a complete lack of basic human preservation on Colombo’s streets, I’ve been in a few tuk-tuk’s now and the amount of times bikes and cars just pull out in front of each other blaring the horn is just a constant.

And oh god the buses, they look cool (kind of remind of Bolivian buses), but they do not give a shit. They don’t even have normal car horns, it literally sounds like a fog horn. If you’re in their way, they will fog horn you and get prepared for ramming speed. Get the hell out of their warpath or they will run you down.

On the first morning in Colombo I headed over to the Dehiwala Zoo. This is a pretty nice zoo who have dedicated themselves to looking after the animals and build open enclosures for them all. I know this because that’s what the signs inside kept telling me. But they do seem to be keeping to that promise and most of the exhibits are open areas with just a few still in concrete prisons. I’d definitely recommend checking this zoo out, maybe not first thing in the morning when they opened and the animals were just waking up to be feed. Or one case, a young leopard was just chilling out outside its pen on one of the public benches with two of the staff. I saw this, turned back, and a minute later I hear one of the staff say as he walked by “It’s okay, she’s back in the cage”. Safety first!

Next stop was over to the National Museum. I’m a museum junkie, and I have to say, this is one of the most impressive buildings a museum has been housed in. It’s a beautiful white colonial building dating back to its construction in 1877, surrounded by a well-manicured green garden. There are two large floors of Sri Lankan history to ponder, and this being a Sunday I was quite surprised by the bus loads of students that were rocking up. Good for them, learn your history kids!

I really only had two other goals I wanted to do on my first day. One, have real Sri Lankan food, and catch the train.

Walking deeper into city a small protest rally was happening off the main roundabout. They all appeared to be Muslim women, but I have no idea what they were protesting, so I gave that a wide berth and a minute later another loud protest group came around the corner walking on the street, as if the roads weren’t already dangerous enough. I could kind of see some English placards, but only made out something to do with freedom. Maybe to do with their Prime Minister recently being ousted.

I found a place claiming to have authentic Sri Lankan food, and felt immediately tourist trap and I couldn’t see anyone in there, so I continued to circle the block, and once I realised I was really hungry I went back and entered. After being greeted he pointed to a back door… and this is where the real restaurant was.

Glorious aircon blasted my face and very soul, the smell of spices and god knows what else assaulted my nostrils, and people were here! Locals and a couple of foreigners. I head toward the back where it looked like it might have been a bain-marie, but the waiter stops me before I can see what’s there and directs me to a table. Looking through the menu I settle on a fish stew. When they bring it out and I try it, there’s just a nuclear blast of spices swirling around a myriad of flavours. Pepper. Chilli. Garlic. I don’t know what else, my brain couldn’t register it all! It’s was incredible.

One curious thing I noticed is what the foreigners were being served versus what the locals where having. We were all given set menus, while the locals would go up to the counter and would get a plate with banana left base, then rice and an assortment other food of their choosing. Then they’d sit down, and use their hand to make a ball out of the rice and add the other food items to it. I’m guessing they think we’d not be up to eating this way, and in my case, they’d be correct.

One successful goal completed, one goal about to be failed. I got to Kollupitya train station and wasn’t quite sure I was in the right place. Two dodgy looking guys hung out the front of the stair case leading up to it, I nod to them and ask if this is the train station. Yes, they reply. Still not entirely convinced this wasn’t a gang hide-out straight from an 80’s film, I go up the stairs and back down another flight and I’m at the platform. However, the next train isn’t for another hour (like Sydney, they reduce train service on Sundays). Screw it, I’m back on a tuk-tuk zipping through traffic back to the hotel.

The next day the mission was to buy a ticket for the next day’s train ride to Jaffna in the north. The reserve tickets counter is the very last counter, and as I reading the board and saw the counter number, an elderly gentleman came over and said “I think you’re looking for counter 17 for reserved seats”. Stop being nice, damnit Sri Lanka.

After buying the ticket I simply wondered around the fort (as much you can now, as the president now lives here and just about everything is a security zone), and down to an area called Galle Face Green (no, I’m not making that up). It’s a mid-sized patch of green space (mostly brown) with a kind of beach of about a metre long which I’d like to hope I was just there for high tide.

This strolling around finally brought them out of their shadowy hiding spaces and convince themselves their mark is a sucker. Sorry con-men, you picked the wrong traveller. Let’s see, I had the “I’ll take you to massage” too many times. “Buy me a coconut” once. “There’s a once off Buddhist festival with elephants, this way, come”, that one was twice and they contradicted each other which direction the festival was at. And finally, a new one for me, “special 50% off gems, just for today. I show you”, uuughh. The only constant with all of them is as soon as they realised they’re not going to convince you, they don’t say another word and just walk off.

What a bunch of jerks, maybe I was just trying to find time to buy this guy a coconut while getting a massage, and then fit in buying some half-priced gems before going to not one, but two, once in a life time Buddhist festivals! HUH, DID YOU THINK OF THAT???

As I’m getting back to the hotel the skies open rain, which causes the accompanying traffic chaos to ensue. Back inside I finally get around to writing this first post for Sri Lanka. And I’m loving it so far.

Tomorrow is a bright and early start for an 8 hours train ride to Jaffna.