Welcome to Colombo

Overwhelming- sums up our first day in Sri Lanka.
We arrived and got through the airport with total ease.
We then made the bus driver laugh as we 2 x refused to get in his shithole bus looking for the “better one”.... only to jump on the shit one 20 mins later after paying $6.... for both of us which was double the price as we had luggage.
A 45 min bus trip and a 25 min walk in 29 deg heat delivered us to Shalimar Hotel.... much nicer than we thought!
We then sussed our Maradana train station for our train to Galle tomorrow before getting a TukTuk to town.
Straight for a coffee and a bite to eat as we were starving and then a wander around a little of Colombo saw us accosted by many “friendly” locals... all men with suggestions of where to visit and what to do and offering to come with us.... no thank you!!!!
One put us In a TukTuk and we found ourselves on our way to the Gem Palace where there was a sale on Sri Lankan gems.... today only- WTF??!!
By now we were pretty overwhelmed so we found refuge in a rooftop bar of a nearest hotel..... only to find there’s no alcohol to be served anywhere today as it’s a ‘Poya’ - full moon public holiday!!
After a juice we got a tuk tuk back to the hotel preparing for our coastal trip tmrw to Galle.Read more