Don't Fly me to the moon

Just get me from Sydney to Colombo and back!

My usual starting point with booking air travel is Expedia Australia.  They are often where I end up as well, since I can get good deals on cars with them as well.  In this case we don't want a car as the Sri Lankans are providing that.

It seemed clear from Expedia that flights from Australia via wherever ending up in Colombo all got in around midnight and the return flights left about 90 minutes later.  (This caused some perturbation in specifying the exact dates for the rest of trip: although we won't actually get to the first accommodation until the 17th April, we need to book the accommodation starting on the 16th!)

The best deal seemed to come from Malaysian Airlines.  QANTAS flights on the way home all seemed to involve longer holdovers in Singapore and Emirates seemed determined to send us via Dubai (and thus have a 14 hour leg, a several hour holdover in a really unpleasant airport and a 5 hour flight back.

The Malaysian on-line ticketing system seemed to have a life of its own, but with perseverance I got it to accept our booking.  So did our friends - one of who is a database management professional and reckoned they needed some more resources in their system since he recognised the problem.  So we are booked!

A reader may wonder why, since we  live near Canberra, we are starting our flights in Sydney.   There are several reasons for this:

• By the time one has travelled to Canberra airport waited and for their 'systems' to process you, taken the flight and transferred to the International terminal it is very little less time than driving;
• The cost of the flights (if more than one person is in the group) is more than the cost of hiring a car.  With 4 of us my guess is that the total cost , including cabs to the airport on one hand and petrol on the other) is about $300 driving and $600 flying.
• Canberra Airport is one of the most revolting places on Earth.  I am sure that if Dante had wanted to have a place worse than being pitchforked into the fires of the Inferno he would have come up with somewhere like this.
• By not using the airport one avoids adding revenue and kudos to the owners of Canberra Airport who in my opinion really deserve a close inspection of traditional hay handling implements!

It is now only a few days to go  and I was contemplating the joys of checking in online at 10pm on the Saturday before we left to make sure we got reasonable seats.  Just on a chance I rang Malaysian to see if I could do this over the phone.  I succeeded for the outward legs and was so excited I didn't enquire about the inbound trip.  However when I passed this on to Rob, giving him our booking code he fixed up all their seats and our return ones also.  Well done that boy!  Well done that airline!  (This turns out to have been a tad optimistic since the pelican on the other end of the phone booked us 4 seats out of 5 on the leg from KL to Sydney.)

April 16 From Carwoola to Colombo

The plan for today is to meet our friends on the outskirts of Canberra and drive to Sydney airport.  We then catch a flight to Kuala Lumpur (aka KL) and transfer to a flight to Colombo.   The essential part of this plan is to spend less time in aircraft than is involved in going to Europe or South America!

The trip started well with a meet in Bungendore and a steady drive to Sydney. It looked as though the tunnel might be jammed, but it cleared once people stopped gawping at the other lane. So we got to the airport on time. There we spotted what Rob called the first leopard of the trip.

This was actually a  female human wearing very tight leopardskin pattern pants. In one swoop she captured awards for

• Pattern of the day
• Bird of the day and 
• mammal of the day

She also added "bad taste of the day" to the list of categories. Frances, to whom the pattern category belongs, has said the winner of that category shoould be the uniform of the Malaysian female cabin crew.

The Malaysian check-in system worked well as did immigration and security. One guy was doing a lot of talking at security as he was a courier taking human stem cells back to Germany. I found the Tax refund place to get my GST (~VAT) back on Frances's bins. The amazing thing was that half the people in the queue didn't meet the rules- too long since purchase; not $300 in one purchase etc etc..

The flight was quite reasonable: only about half full. Some good scenery was seen as we crossed the centre of Australia.

The second of those images shows some very red hummocks somewhere near the Kimberlys.  If any of the Hancock family ever fly this route it must be like a shopping trip!

A surprising aspect of the arrangements was that the information given by the trip monitor site included the heading (tail or head) and speed of the wind. At one point it changed from 60kph tail to 80kph head within 5 minutes. A little bit bouncy at that point, but generally a smooth flight.  There were some interesting late afternoon clouds as we got close to Kuala Lumpur.

The business in transfer at KL was generally OK although many of the prices for duty free were a little harsh ($A250 for a bottle of fancy Scotch). We got cheaper. The flight to Colombo was full at least and pushed back from the gate with about 12 folk still trying to find room for their carry on. Flight a little bumpy but given it took off at 2am body time was not too bad. We landed on time and everything happened reasonably well. Getting the ATM to deliver cash and return my credit card was a little fraught (as they had an unexpected category "Cash advance from credit card" which I initially didn't spot) but that happened OK in the end.  See my main blog for some downstream stuff on this.

By then it was the next day so read on.

May 1st: Last day

After breakfast transfer to International Airport. En route, visit Muthurajawela Marshes.

 Being fanatical runners, Rob and I went for another run this morning.  Just for a change we didn't go over the dam but turned right out of the gate.  This gave us a very pleasant jog along a minor road with Sri Lanka waking up around us.

After a relaxed breakfast packing was finished and Frances and I headed off towards the lobby to await the appearance of the van.  Even though the wheels of our cases made a loud rumbling, (which I thought of as the mating call of a porter) no bag-grabber appeared until we were within about 20m of the meeting point, so  we had won.  However, the staff at these resorts are very aware of who is who so worked out that Rob and Carol would be along soon and moved in for the 100R bill!

Before we headed off on the serious trip to Colombo Rob wanted to buy a couple of flags so was taken to a Buddhist shop in the main street of Dambulla.  

 While he was engaged in that Frances and I ignored the small shop next door 

and  went spice hunting in the nearby Cargill's Supermarket (the ground floor of Beer Central).

I noticed a series of bright red posters with yellow hammer and sickle emblems (plus a lot of Sinhala script).  This drew our attention to it being May Day and Rob and Carol remembered hearing a lot of info on the TV about where the various unions were rallying in Colombo.  As we set off various buses passed us decorated with banners about politicians and with blue tape out the windows: they were carrying folk down to the rallys and the occupants seemed to be having a good time, judging by the amount of drumming coming from a bus that passed while we were stopped at a rest room.

We didn't stop much on the way down, other than to scope out some ploughing, both modern ...

 ... and ancient, with buffalo.

Also a bunch of people de-husking a huge pile of coconuts.

The husks are used to make coir as well as the flesh of the nuts going in to copra.

Once at the city we swung into the Tamarind Tree Hotel where we had arranged to be day guests.  This meant we could have a swim and in the evening a meal in far nicer circumstances than would be available at the airport.  This was a very pleasant spot and being close to the airport would make a good first night spot if heading North (although it would not be as good as Villa Talangama).

In the afternoon Hettie turned up at the Hotel to say farewell.  He said that he was now fine, but I suspect had been far from fine for a day or two.  He said he did panic initially but realised he had to get back to the village so calmed down and organised himself.  He had realised on the brisk walk back that Rob and I had positioned ourselves to catch him if things went awkward.  This made us think of our late friend Milton who would probably have reacted in the same way (but definitely have had a dead snake to show the doctors).

Then we headed off to the Marshes.  As we got close we found a bunch of Catholic Youth putting up banners and a festive gate structure for their festival the following day.  Shortly after this it became apparent we were lost but after a few phone calls to Hetti and others (and enquiring of some puzzled locals) we got to our boat.

The boat trip was great as the volunteer guide and the boatman worked very well together and were experts in their jobs.  A number of good birds were seen with excellent views of Yellow Bittern

Little Egret

Brahminy Kite; and

a new bird for the trip, Striated Heron

A rather spiffy Water Monitor was also seen.

The canal went under a bridge, apparently built by the British about 100 years ago.  It was rather reassuring to note the modern concrete version on the far side of it.  I probably should, but cannot, resist titling this image "Trouble Bridge over waters".

Back at the Tamarind Tree Hotel there was also wildlife around.  A rat snake was keeping things under control in the garden

while a nicely coloured cockroach was on patrol indoors (note that this is not a criticism of the hotel: welcome to the tropics).

At 10pm Nanda and Bundulu loaded us into the van - another great effort in hanging around all evening while we ate and sat around in the hotel - and delivered us to the airport.  We battled through the check in queue and outwards emigration and settled down to wait until our flight took off at 1am.  There were a couple of interesting sights:

• the "dump your old currency here" box appeared to be funding housing for the security forces (but, optimistically, may have been a deal building houses for people displaced by the fighting); and
• the Sri Lankan Netball team heading off to Singapore.  They were mainly remarkable for the good looks of all the players but the stand-out was their captain who was very attractive and also 2.09m tall (ie 6'10").  Since many Sinhalese struggle to attain 5' she was very unusual looking.  I hope they won!

Bird of the Day:  Brahminy Kite
Other vertebrate of the Day:  Buffalo ploughing
Pattern of the Day: Wooden fringes to fascias
Bad taste of the day: no nominations.

Read on

May 2nd Getting Home

Leave Sri Lanka at about 1am, land in Sydney about 7pm and get back to Canberra about 11pm.

That pretty much says it all.  We were intrigued that most monks were allowed on the plane before the rest of us, although the one sitting next to us was a late arrival.  The flight was packed and uncomfortable: inter alia because none of the seats reclined!  I got about 30 minutes sleep.

After a 2 hour stopover in KL, where I slept sitting up for two hours, we discovered that the phone seat reservation service dude had been a pelican.  The plane was a 777 which operates on a 2-5 2 seating pattern.  For some reason hae had given us 4 seats of 5 and then allocated to 5th seat to someone, although there were plenty of rows with only 1 or 2 folk in them.  The flight was survived and I suspect I got a couple more hours sleep.

On arrival in Sydney Frances and I did the Smart Passport routine which is based on photo-recognition.  The problem with this is that one has to take off your glasses so I can't see what is going on.  I needed advice from Frances on when to grab my card after being recognised.  then to quarantine where the main action was to find a small round object.  This turned out to be a mandarin buried in her backpack and forgotten about!  They were not all fussed about the (obviously commercially prepared):

• several packets of tea;
• several packets of spices;
• carved wooden hands or
• bottle of vanilla essence.

The car was picked up and I worked out how to use the essential controls and headed off.  The drive wasn't ideal as we kept diving into rain squalls, but it took almost exactly 3 hours to get to Rob and carol's place in Weston where they had kindly offered us a bed for the night.  This was much much more pleasant than driving another 50km through a wall of kangaroos to a cold and miserable house.

The next day we left bright and early as Carol took off to work.  We went to pick up the small dog from her holiday home.  She seemed to be in good form and was obviously liked by Joanne.  Since getting back home on Thursday morning I have developed a nasty cold but now (Saturday) seem to be over the worst of it.