Advertisement
Published: January 14th 2006
I had been waiting for something to go wrong- I knew that something as wonderful and amazing as a trip to Sri Lanka couldn't possibly happen to me. My heart sank last year when the trip was cancelled due to the disasterous tsunami. Luckily, this year, I was meant to go. I couldn't believe that the wheels on the plane had touched down on asian soil, and I was inside that plane !!! I crossed the Atlantic Ocean when I was 17 years old, and now I could say that I had also crossed the Pacific. My flight to Tokyo was okay, shorter than what I expected, only a mere 11 and one half hours. The restlessness set in at about 9 hours. As a germ-phobic, I was totally grossed out by the lady who sat behind me. I could have sworn she had TB. She coughed the entire 11 and one half hours. Her breath smelled, and I was sure I was going to gag at any minute. The man next to me also suffered from halatosis. So I was trapped, by a woman with diseased lungs behind me, a man with severe bacterial gingivitis to my left, and a window to my right. A 7 hour flight followed to Singapore after a 45 minute wait in Narita airport. The 45 minute wait felt more like 45 seconds. Narita airport was a blur. I couldnt believe that just a few hours prior I was in Houston, Texas, and now I was flying over the Phillapines. At Changi, the people waiting for the flight to Colombo, looked different, that's where I got my first taste of real foreign travel. I guess I looked just as different to them as they looked to me. I was getting these strange looks by them, as if they were questioning if I knew that they gate I was waiting in was going to Sri Lanka. "Are you sure you know were you are going, you white skinned girl?" I got upgraded to first class on this flight, and was welcomed to this third world country by an airport with no ac, no toilet paper, no soap, and a funky smell. Yes, I had finally made it to Sri lanka.
Advertisement
Tot: 0.063s; Tpl: 0.009s; cc: 9; qc: 45; dbt: 0.0413s; 1; m:domysql w:travelblog (10.17.0.13); sld: 1;
; mem: 1.1mb
Jon Pearce
non-member comment
At last!
I hope you've got some more tales to blog. I suspect that you got more from the trip than anyone else. I sensed that you had a lot of pre-conceived ideas that were challenged by Asia and by your sharp observations. Did you notice that many Asians wear surgical masks when they fly on planes? More, more, more!