After a 2am arrival at my hotel in Colombo, Sri Lanka, in which my driver had to repeatedly ring the doorbell to wake up the night watchman, I arose to find a nice buffet breakfast waiting for me downstairs as part of the deal. Afterwards I walked about a block and a half to a golden beach and walked up and down it past numerous cheap hotels, cafes, and restaurants. There were plenty of stray dogs roaming around and a train line to cross that has the widest gauge tracks I have ever seen.
My plan for the day? Get some money changed over, inquire about tours, pop into the center of town to see what there was to see and compare tour prices, and then return to the hotel. Simple enough, I thought. Well, the money changing, which is very simple and straightforward in Singapore (just rock up to a man behind some glass and fork over your dough for his dough) seemed very beaurocratic. There were numerous pieces of paper to fill in, passport requirements, and endless double-checking and running around between desks in the chaotic bank office. What would have taken seconds in Singapore took me hours in Colombo.
Next I tried to find out about tours through the head of my hotel, but her English was good, she kept telling me to tell her exactly what I wanted to see (when I was hoping for advice on what was worth seeing), and a bit cagey when I asked her about prices. She was also busy talking with others much of the time so I finally gave up and decided to hop a tuk tuk into the center of town to see what other tours might be on offer.
The tuk tuk ride had been recommended by the hotel as the safest option for getting into town due to pickpocketers, but the drive in was long and crazy. I felt like the ride was a long game of bumper cars – except you never actually hit anyone. Just constant near misses! At the end of it the tuk tuk driver ripped me off my short changing me the equivalent amount to the entire trip (not much, but still). Welcome to Sri Lanka!
Colombo is very busy and noisy and full of crowded markets and chaotic traffic. Every time I ventured towards what looked like an interesting historical part of town it turned out to be some high security government office I would be waived away from by security guards.
It seemed hard to find any information at all about touring the island. The most common way to see the island seems to be in hiring a driver (for the price of renting a car) and have them chauffeur you around to all the big sites on the island. I attempted to walk the whole way back to my hotel but gave up after about 15kms. When I tried to buy a soft drink to rehidrate, the shop owner insisted I drink it on the spot so he could hold on to the bottle. Perhaps he just sent it back to the bottling plant to be refilled, but it sounded a bit dodgy to me so I declined the opportunity.
Finally back in my hotel I flipped through my Lonely Planet with my hotel manager and told her what I was interested in seeing. She said she would call her driver and get a quote on the price. It all worked out in the end, but paying for the tour became a major nightmare due to the price – which wasn’t that bad by Western standards, but converted into Sri Lankan Rupees made it sound astronomical. Atms wouldn’t pay out that much in a day and I couldn’t find an American Express office to cash a check. Finally after much scheming to pay for it I noticed a Visa / MasterCard machine under their front desk – even though I had already specifically asked if the took any credit cards (No! They said). So after much headache running around about yet another issue it was all easily resolved with a credit card.
