Landing on the island and Negombo

With a splash I entered the warm, salty waters of the Indian Ocean, it reminded me of growing up along the Natal coastline of South Africa, but this time it's along the western Sri Lankan coastline and the village of Negombo.

Negombo is a fishing village some 40 km's north of the capital Colombo, it's closer to the airport and so I decided to spend my first couple of days here to acclimatise to the weather and culture. I left the low temperatures of the UK the day before and the increase is some 20 degrees C. and a 80% dry humidity, and that is why the first thing I did was hit the water.

After spending 5 hrs at Heathrow Airport reading and people watching, sitting near the escalators can provide some interesting social interactions of human verses machine, as they approach you can see the people who use the escalators often enough to have the confidence of the first step, then there are the people relatively new to the experience of going up stairs without having to walk. That first tentative step is always a little shaky, before they are pulled forward, the relief showing on their faces as they begin their accent, leaving with one final look of satisfaction and pride of making the step without making a fool of themselves.



My flight was a late one leaving at 9pm in the evening, my plan is to spend the next 3 months exploring the island country of Sri Lanka, I have always had a longing to visit the island, I don't know where it came from but maybe I'll find out while I'm here. Lamb curry is on the menu on my Air Sri Lankan flight to Colombo and the smell of curry fills the plane as we level out high above the clouds and on our way.

Negombo, is creeping its way from being a sleepy fishing village to becoming a sea side tourist destination on the international map now that the war is over, it has all the makings to one day become a thriving resort, a picture on a postcard of a long beachfront of hotels with swimming pools out front. The hotels replacing the stained white buildings that occupy the spaces between the few new developments already attracting the first of the more adventurous Europeans looking for something different, where they can spend their two week holidays. They sit in their speedo's and bikinis on well kept lawns facing out towards the sea, safe from the hawkers who patrol the beach, they sit behind a single wire fence erected by the hotels to keep their guests from being bothered by the natives hoping to get rich off them selling their cheap souvenirs.

I spent at least two hours enjoying body surfing the shore break of the warm waters, every so often a hawker would try to entice me from my fun by shaking bead and bone necklaces and T-shirts with Sri Lankan colours, from the shoreline. I had made a point of walking down a dirty alley so the locals would see I was not staying in one of the resorts but a cheaper guest house two streets back from the beach, but I suppose once you one the beach you are fair game.