Colombo

Coming to Sri Lanka was pretty difficult due to the economic crisis happening. My inward and outward flights were cancelled so I had to double down and buy even more expensive tickets since only Sri Lankan airlines was left operating and they total monopoly on the prices. The flight from Bangkok were mostly Sri Lankans and I could literally count the number of foreigners with my hands. The airport was desolate and I could definitely see the effects of the financial crisis. I was the only person in immigration and the guard barely made any effort to check and just let me in without checking if I had the required insurance. As I passed through customs, one of the guards held me off just because I only had a backpack with me. I was a bit nervous they would find my edibles but I was able to get off scot-free, my bag however lost one of its zippers while passing through their machine. There were a bunch of money exchanges competing with each other for every dollar the tourists are bringing. The taxi drivers also were quite ready to try and get me to take a ride with them but I already had plans to take the cheapest option: the bus. I had a simcard with me and I was asking for directions on where to take the bus and one of the guards told me that the bus I wanted to take was taking off and advised me to run after it. I thought if he was being serious but I did run after it and it did stop for me. So with this, I am quickly getting accustomed to the Sri Lankan way. Enjoying the internet for the first time while on the road with a 5 dollar sim card was pretty epic. Colombo was somehow meeting and missing my expectations. It was definitely one of the most impoverished places I've been to so far. More than just dirty, it was also lacking a lot of infrastructure and development in general. As I got off the bus, one of the tuktuk drivers managed to get me to ride with him even though the train station was only a couple of meters after using the suffering and poor country card. I gave him some extra nevertheless. After getting my ticket at the counter, I ate some bread and waited for around 2 hours for the train to Habarana which was going to be another 6 hours or so.Read more