Shenzhen and KL to Colombo :-)

---

---

Finally time to travel with my boyfriend!
After saying goodbye to my cousin on the 14th (with a whiskey-chinese new year-hangover), we were all packed and ready for our adventure on the 15th. Step one: waving down a taxi for the airport. While walking the 100 metres from our apartment to the road (where we can see taxis but they can't see us) we saw no less than four taxis passing by, but when we made it to the road we had to wait quite a long time before we finally got one.

Check in, baggage check, easy peasy, got to Gate 7 with time to spare. As we sat there watching basketball and ads for "Cats and Dogs 2" on the public TV's we kept an eye on the information screen for our gate. It was saying "Beijing 11.55" and not "Shenzhen 12.10" like it was supposed to. After the time for boarding had passed I went and asked an airport official, she didn't know anything about a gate change. Hmm. More time passed, still no boarding call and no flashing lights, but then I noticed some people walking down the hallway past our gate. So I asked the girls at our "Beijing" gate if everyone was walking down to the Shenzhen gate - oh yes they were. Well thank you Xiamen airport for your kind information! Ha!

Well we made it on the plane, and that's the main thing. Free fishy meal on board, landed on time 13.20. After we collected our luggage we headed straight for the buses outside, to take bus 355 towards SeaWorld (a fancy expat area, no aquariums or anything) and beyond, where we were met by our CouchSurfer Enrique. The bus ride took about an hour and twenty minutes, cost 6 kuai and was a cold, foggy affair. Enrique and his nice labrador Sinbad picked us up at the bus stop, and we went to their home, where we met his wife Adoudou who had cooked some wonderful chicken and soup of which she had saved us some. Delicious! And what a nice welcoming :-) After hanging out for a little bit, Enrique and Sinbad walked us to the foot of a hill, which was supposed to have some really nice views. Josh tossed some sticks to Sinbad, but rather than giving them back she tried to collect them all in her mouth and wouldn't let go. Silly dog :-)

The hill was a bit higher than we thought, and it was raining and misty. We walked along with rosey cheeks and raindrops in our hair. It was lovely to be out in nature again, even if the first views through the lush trees were of a huge container harbour, full with cranes and everything :-)
We made it, huffing and puffing, to the top, where we could see.. well.. nothing. The mist was so thick that everything around us was white. But there was an interesting little great wall-replica/ruin on the top, as well as electricity-towers.

Down again, and after a delicious dinner we spent the evening playing with Adoudou and Enrique's cute little one and a half-year-old Bambina. After hiding behind her dad for half an hour she started crawling on us and feeding us imaginary chocolate and laughing hysterically every time she looked at us.

Next morning, after a nice bowl of oatmeal we left for some exploring. First we took the bus (226, 2 kuai) to 左炮台ZuoPaoTai "Left fort", which is where 林则徐 LinZeXu valiantly tried to stop the British from shipping in opium, which kickstarted the opium war. There was a big statue of the guy, a good view of the harbour, as well as an old cannon, which at no point at all was free from Chinese tourists trying out different poses.

After our quick brush with history, we went through the woods down to the bus stop and took bus 226 to Seaworld, which was only a couple of stops and 1 kuai away. Very fancy expat area, had all different kinds of food imaginable, but at a very high price. The average main course was about 80 kuai! We found a nice Nepalese restaurant where we could have curries and papadums and everything for 69 per person, as well as anchor beer, 2 for one's price at 30. It wasn't the best food ever but it was quite good, and the owner (Nepalese) was very friendly.

At about 5-ish we got the bus back to Enrique and our bags, hopped on the bus to the airport, and arrived between gate A and B. It didn't seem there were any other terminals, and we went into A. After asking a few people we found out we were supposed to be in terminal D, but there were no signs whatsoever signifying the existance of a terminal D. We finally got pointed in the right direction, fought through the cold between the two terminals and got to our gate.
At the gate there was a smoking area, and I'll let the photo of it speak for itself. It'll be lower on the page :-) The plane for KL with AirAsia left on time, I bought at comfort kit (containing a blanket, inflatable neck cushion and blindfold) for 35 malaysian ringgits on board and had a little bit of a sleep before we arrived at 1.20 AM in Kuala Lumpur.

As always when in Malaysia, we headed straight for the food. At about 3 in the morning we shared a chicken curry and some other dishes at the food court - yummy! And cheap. We then had a bit of a sleep on the grass outside, I was very grateful that I had my comfort kit, and we got up again at 5 to drop our bags and get on the plane at 6.15. We'd checked in at the stands when we arrived, and didn't think bag dropping would take that long, but we ended up having to hop in front of 6-7 people in the queue to make it through immigration and to the gate in time. Free WiFi at the T-gates, water for 4 ringgits, and on we hopped.

The flight took 3½ hours, but because of a time difference of 2½ hours we arrived at Colombo airport at 7.15, only an hour after we left. Colombo is HOT, even at 7 in the morning, so all the airplane aircon-clothes went off quickly! First stop was to find out a way of getting to the train station to buy tickets to Kandy after a few days. We had heard a lot about touts in Sri Lanka, so we ignored all the calls of "taxi taxi" and walked straight out to find a bus. Turns out there is a free bus from the airport to the Katunayake bus station, from where bus 187 leaves for Colombo Fort (and the train station). It is also possible to walk down the road past the security guards and flag down the 187 from a street corner, but it is not adviceable to do that with all your bags, as we found out on our way back, at the end of our trip :-)

We were quoted several different prices for the 187 bus, 150 rupees, 50 rupees, 100 rupees, but we ended up paying 40 rupees, and as the ticket price on the ticket said 37 we figured we hadn't been ripped off. Later we heard of a guy who paid 1000 rupees for the same bus ride!! Dangerous, when you're in a new country and don't know the general prices of things. I mean, could have been that price in a European country, but in Sri Lanka!
(By the way, there is an excellent currency converter on www.xe.com, if you're not sure of the current state of the CNY, ringgit or Sri Lankan rupee)

The bus was a crazy affair - we thought buses were crazy in China, but compared to Sri Lanka they're equivalent to Sunday pensioners taking a stroll in the park. Both doors are open, people are hopping on and off while the bus is still driving, the bus attendant runs back and forth between the doors both on the outside and inside, people hang out of the doors and are jammed like sardines on the inside - and to top it all off the buses drive at break neck speeds through built up areas. Josh commented that it sometimes seemed like the buses were trying to deliberately tip over all the tuk tuks (who were as equally insane as the bus drivers). It took about an hour of nail biting madness, but we arrived at Colombo Fort safe and sound and found the train station very easily.

We had been told to buy tickets for the Kandy train at counter 4, but only counter one was open. At counter one they told us that they only sell tickets for the same day at the counters, so we had to go to the reservation room to reserve for two days hence. Easy to find, but after asking if the tickets were available or not I got my first brush with cultural differences. In Sri Lanka, they shake their head when they mean yes. I had heard this before, but as the man at the counter was shaking his head and saying "available" at the same time, I couldn't help feeling a bit dumbfounded for a few seconds, before I pulled myself together and bought the ticket. It's really a deeply rooted thing, this basic body language, and it came back to haunt me many times during the trip. Even though we knew that head shaking means yes, it's very hard to understand it in actuality.
We bought two tickets for the observation car (the back car, all seats facing backwards, with panorama windows to the back, to soak in the view) to Kandy, 732 rupees total.

What followed shall follow in the next entry!

---

Comments

[Peter]

Interesting and very well written. You should sell some of your traveling experiences to Lonely Planet!