Good-Bye Siri

Galle, Sri Lanka
Originally uploaded by kden604.

Yesterday was a nice day... a bit sad because Siri would be leaving the next morning.

We went in to town of Negombo and I did some e-mails and Internet while Siri did a little bit of shopping. Of course I had to laugh when she came back with about 10 packages of Henna. We've been having a blast tattooing henna all over each other in the past couple of weeks. I do have pictures, but I need to wait longer to put them online, in need of a good connection once again.

In the late afternoon we headed down to the beach and curled up next to a log and watched the sunset for the last time. Took some silly pictures and then moved on to find some dinner and copy some music CDs.

It was another late night, but after dragging ourselves out of bed in the early morning we were off by Tuktuk to the airport. Her flight left around 10am, but she needed to be there 3 hours in advance. Because of all the high security around the airport, taxis and tuktuks can't just wait around the departure or arrival areas. So our goodbye was brief as she made her way through the security checks.

When I tried to leave the airport, my tuktuk had to go outside of the security zone. I wasn't allowed to walk out to where he was, I wasn't allowed to walk out to the street through the way I came in. So I had to signal him to come around the 2 km of fencing just so we could leave through the same gate I was standing right next to. Military intelligence, let me tell you.

I had the driver drop me off in Negombo city so I could buy some cheap hot breakfast food then I continued back to the hotel. I had a beautiful little letter waiting for me when I arrived and then I was out to find an Internet Cafe.

I gave Siri a call on her mobile to see if she had any problems getting her ticket. She changed her flight date and city of departure but there was some issues of approval from Emirates Airlines which took a while to work out. Luckily we met a really great Asst Manager at the Colombo office who sent some e-mails on her behalf so we didn't have to come in to the office in Colombo to pay the fees. She was able to pay them at the airport when she was just about to depart. Thanks Keith at the Emirates office in Colombo, you saved us some time and money and were a pleasure to deal with.

I also called my parents and spoke to them for about 40 minutes. My parents seem to be really excited about the house moving and my Father seems more cheerful than I've ever heard him which is really cool. He liked the beach hut we stayed in Hikkaduwa, but some how I don't think he could cope with the 30C+ weather! Maybe he could put an AC in it!

Anyways, I've been bumping around most of the day. I went back to the hotel and listened to the Discman... Red Hot Chilly Peppers were sort of the Sri Lankan theme music for the past little while... Then I drifted off to catch up on some lost sleep.

This brings me up until now... I'm listening to some old school rap, "Jump Jump, Jump up and get down!" The kid at the internet cafe had some strange taste in music, there was classical music on when I walked in the door!

Oh, one last thing before I go. This morning on the TukTuk back from the airport I saw an accident. Well, not the accident itself, but the aftermath and cleaning up.

Word to the wise: Don't try and race a train across tracks in Sri Lanka. The train might look to be slower than you, but it only needs to bump you to squish you like a can.

This post is long enough, I'm off to practice my head wobble and find some food.