Colombo II

Sanji came to pick me up in the morning since Lasantha had to be somewhere else. With his jeep, he took me to the bus stop and stood there waiting with me until the bus to Colombo arrived. The bus was cramped and still without any air-condition so this was going to be another one of them bumpy rides. The ride started of a bit too warm for my tastes, I was seated right at the alley side next to an old man with my bag underneath so there really wasn't much space. There was also a lady who was standing next to me for a bit, the old man kindly offered to carry the lady's bag on his lap so she wouldn't have to. I also noticed a Ganesha poster right at the front which was always a welcome surprise. For the next couple of hours, people came and went until I got to have a seat by the window. I was able to see more of the country side as we passed the various towns along the way while the weather went from sunny to rainy to cloudy and back to sunny again.

In Colombo, I had just one spot on my bucketlist which was the Jami Ul-afar Mosque, a mosque with a peculiar design of pink and white. Almost akin to a Russian castle. From the bus station, I walked passed the market and some alleys til I got to the mosque which was unfortunately closed to visitors. I still got a nice picture of the exterior before starting the walk back to find the bus going to the airport. I was asking for directions but was being pointed back and forth and I was getting more confused with all the backtracking until someone actually pointed me to the right direction. Along the way, I saw someone carrying some groceries and one of his green bellpeppers fell outside the fence to the high way. Seemed like he had his hands full so I left my bag at the side of the road and climbed over the fence to fetch his missing bellpepper. He thanked me and that was my good deed done for the day. I found the air-conditioned bus going to the airport and from there it was another hour or so to Negombo. At the airport, everything went pretty smoothly this time around and after more waiting, I got on my plane to Dubai.Read more