Colombo, Sri Lanka--Day 29

Riiiing, riiiing, riiing. I roll over and look at the clock. Its 9 in the morning, who could this be? I pick up the phone. Its Ruberu. Hello! I have come to work today, do you need to go anywhere?? I smile and tell Ruberu that no, I don’t need any rides today thank you and hang up, falling back asleep. Riiing riiing riiiing. I roll over again and now its 10 o’clock. Again it is Ruberu. Miss it says here that you want to have a tour of Colombo today (it does??) do you still want to go?? No thank you, I say, and tell Ruberu that I do need to get to the airport tonight and so we arrange for him to take me at 11 o’clock pm. After the second phone call I decide that it is time to get up and do some work. I spend the morning transferring and labeling photos, deciding that I should stick around the Colombo area today instead of venturing off like the previous days.

After working for a while I went downstairs and had lunch at the buffet restaurant and then decided to walk down to a handicraft store to pick up some Sri Lankan crafts. The store was only 2 short blocks from my hotel so there was no need to get a taxi. So I set off, but turn in the wrong direction at first. Instead of turning right back around, I decided that I could actually walk around my hotel to the other side and get through that way, so I kept walking.

Several rickshaws passed offering me rides but I refused. I turned around a corner and heard a familiar honking sound and turned to see what it was.

Its Ruberu. Again.

Hello Miss! He says, I saw you walking and I was coming back to the hotel and so I thought I would come see where you are going since you are walking away from the hotel. Smiling, I walk up to him and tell him where I need to go. I will take you, he says and so I agree. He takes me around the corner and drops me off at the store and I tell him that there is no need to wait since it really was not far from the hotel.

So I spend about an hour perusing the shop and make it back to my hotel with my huge bag that needs to be sent back to the United States. So I get some other things from my room and head back out to get a taxi to the DHL which is a courier service to the States. Ruberu wasn’t around at this time so I had to get another taxi driver to take me (much to his disappointment later---why didn’t you call me Miss??) I spend about an hour at the DHL trying to send my things back to the States, unfortunately not being able to send all of it since some of the receipts were back in my hotel room and the man was very wary of sending things through Sri Lankan customs without the receipts.

After all of this I head back to the hotel and go back to the pool again. Its about the same time as yesterday (around 4:30) so there is just a few hours to swim and enjoy the nice weather. I then head back to my room and get changed then head to the Sri Lankan restaurant for dinner but am unfortunately turned away due to my lack of reservation (it is a Saturday night!) and go back to the buffet restaurant from lunch and have dinner there.

My flight leaves at 2:50am and so now I am spending my time writing in my blog and packing things up, waiting for it to be 11 o’clock so that Ruberu can take me to the airport!




(c) 2004 Sarah Galbraith. All Rights Reserved.