Advertisement
Published: January 9th 2013
Butterfly Garden 1
@ Changi International Airport, SingaporeJanuary 5...I'm at my uncle George's apartment, overlooking the Galle Face Green park and the ocean in Colombo. It's a bit gloomy and mostly overcast, but hot and humid outside, much like yesterday but without the persisitent drizzle. Apparently the rain that Colombo has been experiencing recently is somewhat unusual for this time of year.
The journey from Calgary to Colombo was long but uneventful. The travel gods were smiling, as the flight from Los Angeles to Singapore (with a 2 hour layover in Tokyo) was not full and there was an empty seat between myself and the next passenger in my row. It was unexpected to have a bit more elbow room but very welcome when trying to manoeuver into a comfortable sleeping position. (a note for Dean W. - the plane was an Airbus 380-800 - the biggest plane I've ever flown on with seating capacity of 417 passengers). I did manage 4 to 5 hours of sleep per segment, but was happy to check into the transit hotel on arrival at Singapore's Changi Airport at 4 am to get some more sleep in a real bed!
If you have to endure a long layover (mine was
Butterfly Garden 2
@ Changi International Airport, Singapore nearly 19 hours), Changi is one of the best airports in the world to be stuck at. There's a mind-boggling array of shopping if one is so inclined as well as internal butterfly, orchid and sunflower gardens, a swimming pool, movie theatre, 3 transit hotels, Singapore's tallest waterslide and many other attractions among its 3 terminals. Downtown Singapore is relatively close - I left the airport midafternoon on a free 2 hour bus tour that gave me a flavour for the city's central attractions but decided not to explore further as it was pouring rain by that point and my umbrella was in my checked bag.
Arrival in Colombo was very efficient. I arrived just after midnight local time on January 4, approximately 51 hours after leaving Calgary. I had applied for the Sri Lankan visa ($20 USD) online and after scanning my passport and giving me the visa stamp, I was through immigration - it took maybe 2 minutes. Waiting the bags took much longer as I'm sure they were buried in the bowels of the aircraft and came out nearly last. An hour's drive into Colombo proper and I was at George's at 2 am, tired but
Butterfly Garden 3
@ Changi International Airport, Singapore happy to have arrived. Time for more sleep!
My aunt has been visiting, so we spent Friday morning down in the old Fort area while my uncle was at work. It was good to get some fresh air, although the humidity is going to get some getting used to. We visited the local jeweller as well, as Maria had some pieces to pick up - probably not the best time to start shopping but what the heck!
Advertisement
Tot: 0.071s; Tpl: 0.012s; cc: 11; qc: 29; dbt: 0.04s; 1; m:domysql w:travelblog (10.17.0.13); sld: 1;
; mem: 1.1mb
shirley kearney
non-member comment
Looks like a fab time