21 August 2019
Our plane landed in Colombo at about 11:30pm. We had a 3.5 hour flight from Singapore. The layover in Singapore was a tight one hour. We arrived at Terminal 1 and then there was a mad rush to Terminal 2 to catch the flight to Colombo.
Our guide, Jagath was waiting for us in Colombo. We loaded up the bags into his van and headed for the hotel. The airport was quite a way from the city. We got to the hotel at about 1am. Colombo is 5.5 hours behind Sydney. We were dead tired and got to bed at about 1:30am.
Our hotel, Taj Samudra was across the road from the historic Galle Face Hotel where I stayed twice previously. I just wanted to try something different. Our guide was going to pick us at 10:30am. We were up by 7am. We readied ourselves and headed for breakfast. The variety at breakfast was extensive. Dianne was in heaven.
We were taken on a quick tour of Colombo before we headed for lunch at 12 noon with my friend Faizer.
Faizer also has connections in the gem business. I had pre-arranged for him to bring some stones particularly blue sapphires. We were buying a stone for our friend Anne back home. Dianne indulged herself with a stone too.
After lunch we went for a spot of shopping. First stop was a store named Barefoot, which sold locally woven material and other handicraft.
It was recommended that we go to the Galle Face Hotel to experience sunset at the beach bar. We headed there at 5:30pm.
We witnessed the traditional flag lowering ceremony at sunset. A bagpipe player gave proceedings a bit of grandiose.
