Arriving to Colombo, Sri Lanka

We had a nice nightflight from Chennai to Colombo - We got a rickshaw from ZamZam in Chennai to the airport around 20:30 and spent almost an hour sitting in trafficjams (the airport is under 15 km away from ZamZam Guesthouse). In the airport our cheap airlines had "special" securitycheck lines so it was good we arrived 3 hours in advance to our flight.

The flight with Spicejet was fast and pleasant. We even got free bottles of water during the flight. We landed around 2 am in Colombo and filled in the Visa papers, got stamps and picked up our luggage. For our surprice half of the airport is 24/7 shopping mall for bigger household items, like fridges, ovens, washing machines, tv's and even guitars.
Our grand plan was to leave one of our big backpacks to the luggage drop for the next 3 weeks in airport. Unfortunately this was not possible because we were lacking padlocks (how to seal a backpack with them is still a mystery to me), so they refused to take our luggage in. So we decided to take a Bus to the city and go to the railwaystation (hoping that they also have luggage drop available).

We found the bus fastly and went to sit in it. This was around 4:30 am. After waiting 10 minutes in the bus we went to ask from the driver when is the bus leaving. In 10 minutes he said. So we waited a bit more and after 10 minutes asked same question and were rewarded with the same answer. Thats ok, we waited a bit more until it was past 5 am and after that we decided to take a taxi.

We, feeling tired and hungry, got to the railwaystation, found a left luggage office, bought some mandarins, cakes and drinks and took a morning train to Galle enjoying the scenic views from seaside railroadtracks and spotting tropical beaches and also traces from the disasterous tsunami of 2004.

Chennai, Tamil Nadu

We took a nighttrain from Mysore to Chennai. The train was surprisingly clean and smooth for Indian standards, atleast for a while. After settling down for half an hour an Indian boyschool class of 12 year olds invaded our wagon. This was nice for a while (they finally had a chance to practice their english which wasn't good at all yet), asking politely our names, nationalities etc. Their teachers were walking up and down the train counting the boys and their seatnumbers while looking with who they would share the compartment. Two friendly chubby female teachers decided to change their berths from our compartment for others (so they would not have to climb up the highest beds in their sari's) so the kids felt they had freedom to go a little wild; not sleep when they were told to. Unfortunately the boys got then also a little too friendly with Mariska asking how much money she has, about bankcards, camera and so on. We decided at this point to turn off the lights hoping that they would get the message and try to fall asleep. A couple of them decided instead to keep Mariska awake begging for coins. Only after multiple threats about getting their teachers (and Mariska waking me up to intervere) they decided to play good little boys and atleast pretend to be sleeping rest of the night.

Winter on Chennai Beach, notice the man with a woolly hat

Chennai is again a big city, this time equipped with a beach (too strong currents for swimming though). We are staying in Triplicane district in Indian Zam Zam Guest House in a small cell like room. Atleast the price is ok, 300 inr - 5€ / night.

Zam Zam

Chennai feels a lot less "westernised" than it's (IT) counterpart Bangalore - so we are forced for a change to live with a diet of pure indian food ;)

From here we have flights at midnight to Colombo, Sri Lanka. From Colombo we are planning to leave directly to Galle, and from there finally back to some beaches.