Back in Colombo

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We will be spending two days in Colombo. We check into our hotel. Adele needs to make some calls so we leave her in our room. She's also going out for dinner tonight and would love a hot shower - we have plenty of towels. Go for it! Victoria and I join the others to hit the mall. It is a four level complex with lots of stores. The basement is the food court; pizza, Thai, Chinese, Indian, KFC, and a few others. The same fast food and steam table fare you can get in San Jose. After a snack we go check out the shops. Again mostly the same stuff you can get in San Jose. The loudspeakers are playing music - The Eagles, "Hotel California." We did find a DVD of the Kandy Dancers. There was also a large amount of grey and black market products, Peter Jackson's "King Kong" was available for only 200 rupees ($2 US). I'll wait and get a legal copy.

The next morning we have lectures at the University of Colombo. Morning rush hour in Colombo gets us to the lecture late. Our cab drivers take us to the wrong entrance to the campus. It's a short walk but it only makes us even later.

We have the evening free and Victoria and I decide to have a fancy dinner. We share a tuc-tuc with Adele to the Galle Face Green, a promenade stretching along the sea. The hotel where Adele had directed us was booked for the evening so we walked the length of the promenade looking for food vendors. No meal was to be had, however we enjoyed watching the kites, the children playing, and a wonderful sunset over the Indian Ocean. At the far end of the promenade were more hotels. In one hotel were several weddings. There was also an first-class Indian buffet. Three Coins beer and several trips to the food tables. Wonderful service, great food, and a lovely setting - worthy of that king from Sigiriya. I'll bet he didn't have the variety of dishes we enjoyed. We passed up the cabs at the hotel lobby and stepped out onto the sidewalk and grabbed a tuc-tuc back to the hotel. On the way we were stopped by a routine search. Our driver was flagged over. This was very routine for him. He immediately handed the military officer his papers and gave the name of our hotel. Another office looked at the two of us, we smiled, he gave us sort of little smile back. Three minutes latter we are on our way.

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