In 2017 myself, a friend of mine and her two children all left cold Lake Como on the 2nd of February to board a night flight to Colombo, Sri Lanka, with a halfway seven hours (yes, seven) stop in Dubai airport. It was the second journey I’ve done with my friend and her two children, the first one was in Cuba in February 2015. We really love our wintry escapes. We chose Sri Lanka because my friend owns a hotel where a lady (and family friend) from Sri Lanka works and this lady happened to invite us to stay with her and her family (her husband also works in the hotel) in Colombo, if we did decide to fly to Sri Lanka. I, on my side, also wanted to go to Sri Lanka, as I had seen amazing photos of the country on Instagram, which is always a travel inspiration for me: rice fields, temples, white beaches and a rich, luxuriant nature. The daughter of the couple was also working in my family’s hotel when she was younger and I was happy to see her, too.
Our flight was a bit of a nightmare because, even if Emirates is lush and we travelled during the night, which always eases your sleep, the seven hours stop in Dubai really was too long, we just wanted to get on the plane. The lady who booked the tickets for us said that in Dubai airport there was plenty to do, it’s huge, but it still was too long especially for the two kids (at least they had their scooter, though!). We arrived in warm Colombo at 10pm more or less, where our friends welcomed us with big smiles and took us to a restaurant where I tried my first Sri Lankan rice (and I never stopped eating it for the following three weeks).
After our late dinner we finally got to our friends’ home at midnight (surviving a crazy ride on a van, during which I lost 10 years of my life). Their family home was so big, beautiful, with a pretty courtyard. We were given a whole floor with two bedrooms and a huge terrace, where their older son usually lives. I’ll tell you what, we slept twelve hours straight and woke up at midday the following day. Rude guests we’ve been! >.<
On our first day in Sri Lanka we visited Colombo, which didn’t impress me to be honest, but that happens quite often to me in big cities in Asia, I prefer smaller villages and island. Anyway, we did go to Colombo’s beach and we had a pleasant and delicious dinner with out feet on the sand. LUSH! Before going to the beach we went to a famous Sri Lankan mall, Odel, where I bought a lovely, colourful dress.
We spent only two nights at our friends’ home in Colombo, because we wanted to visit a lot of places in the country and were impatient to begin the tour. Therefore on our second day we went to the capital’s main station to buy our train tickets to the northern city of Anuradhapura, where we would find the temples. The journey of course lasted about five hours… But we don’t like comfortable, easy things, do we? 😀
And then, after five hours on the train, we finally arrived in Anuradhapura at 7pm… But this is another story!
Camy in Wonderworld 