Eastbound

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My first Travelblog contribution begins in the UK while continuing my pre-flight checks, a day or two before venturing to the sub-continent.

Polio…hepatitis…typhoid…yep, I am lucky, I’ve had all these. The immunisations for them, I mean. Previous tropical trips and their corresponding jabs have rendered this particular journey injection-free.

Anti-malarial tablets have been acquired and they will be used, although some other Brits are reluctant to bother with them when visiting Sri Lanka. Having witnessed in the past a European traveller friend get cut down for a week with dreadful dengue fever which he picked up while volunteering in the now war-torn Trincomalee on the east coast, and in the process losing 20-odd kilos and suffering on a drip, my inclination as far as malaria tablets is to say ‘bugger it, I’ll take them’.

Other crucial decisions include where to put up for the first few nights upon arrival in noisy central Colombo, and also where to watch the Ashes Test matches (England v Australia - for the uninitiated or the uninterested, it’s cricket!). The answers are good old Padmini’s guesthouse near Liberty Plaza shopping centre, Colombo 03 - an old favourite, and the Cricket Club Café, Colombo 07. My hope is that by the time I get to see some live cricket on TV there, the England boys are faring well, for this rather fine establishment that serves up constant satellite cricket action from round the world as well as good western food, is run by a partisan couple from….Australia! Yikes! Let’s hope I don’t have to creep in and keep a low profile in the corner of the restaurant while obscuring the three lions badge on my shirt, on account of an unworthy English display against the old enemy…

With options over where to spend Christmas and New Year still to be considered, the remaining concerns are not really concerns either - mainly what clothing to pack I guess (not much - it’s damned hot in Colombo and every item one might require is available at favourable costs for the discerning European visitor anyway). Oh yes, and I must remember the roughly-sketched out road map showing an orphanage near a village in central Sri Lanka which I am to visit, assuming my navigational skills will allow it - this map (care of Nigel, ex-Loughborough, now Wiltshire) also goes into the luggage. Yeah, good luck finding that place in the arse-end of nowhere! More of this later. One aim of my trip is to spend time coaching cricket to the remarkably enthusiastic youngsters in Sri Lankan schools, and this dictates that two-thirds of my SriLankan Airlines baggage allowance (a generous 35kgs) will be made up of the equipment to carry out this task. Suntan lotion (expensive in Sri Lanka) needs to be taken, SIM card for the mobile (cheap in Sri Lanka) does not.

In terms of leaving the UK and heading off to Sri Lanka, my one final thought is similar to that which befell Little Bo Peep all those years ago - put simply, “let’s get the flock outta here”.

See you in Sri Lanka!

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