Colombo

Well I didn't do too much in Colombo since I only had one night. And I'm glad that I only allotted one night. However, I will remember the city for 2 key things. And they weren't good things. One for trying to fix my phone, and the other for trying to not miss my flight to India. Since I'm sitting in Delhi right now, I was successful on the latter. Not on the former.

Remember that 20-miler I went on? Well my phone stopped working after that run. I pretty much killed it with my sweat. The humidity was so bad, and I sweat just walking, let alone running for several miles, I'm not entirely surprised. However, the phone should still be working. Aren't you supposed to be able to run with it? There are all these exercise apps already built in. Anyway, I waited until I got to Colombo to see if anything could be done. I tried an online Samsung support chat, with no luck. After multiple stops in Samsung stores, I was led to a hole-in-wall place where these IT guys were going to attemp to fix it. Or at least I had hoped, and they were feeling good about it. I waited for the initial diagnosis, and sure enough the guys kept asking me if I dropped it in water. I said I did not. I went running with it and it seems like it got sweat inside. He returned to his work station and attempted to fix it. Over an hour later, he returned and after a couple of them conversed (not in English), I was informed my phone wasn't fixable. Awesome. I have insurance, so that should cover getting a new phone not at full price. I still have to pay something, which is annoying. And I'm going to have to download all my apps again and all that. Mostly everything is backed up. I did lose some photos while I was running though. I guess it's ok since I have a ton of photos on my camera. So I'll get over it. Now the next step is to actually file the claim, get it delivered to my friend, have her activate it, and  bring it with her to Vietnam where I'm meeting her. No biggie. Having a phone makes such a difference when youa are traveling though. I want to avoid pulling out my tablet as much as possible. I also was given an India Lonely Planet book. Which is great (and heavy), but again, it brings more attention to me than I want. A phone is way more manageable to navigate all these new places (or play games). 

So onto the better news. After exploring Colombo (I'll get to that in a minute. Or two.), I started the trek to the airport. I left myself 4 hours to get there in time for my flight. You'd think that would be enough time. But no. I walked to the bus station to catch the express bus to the airport. After waiting for over 30 minutes, I was getting a little nervous, but just brushed it off as other travelers were showing up. Finally the express bus pulled up. And then pulled away. I have no idea why they weren't turning around to go back to the airport. After some discussions, we found out that the buses weren't even coming into the station, and only pulling over on the side of the road. Seriously. Why is there a stand if they don't pull up to it like every other bus. Fortunately we caught one right away. Unfortunately, we got stuck in traffic. Af this point, I had 3 hours left. Ok, no problem. The ride in from the airport was pretty quick, so hopefully the city bus wouldn't take that much longer. Well it did. It's now a little over an hour before my flight is leaving. And guess what? They need to stop for gas. 2 kilometers before the airport and all of a sudden they need gas. I'm convinced it's some sort of conspiracy that the bus drivers have with the tuk tuk drivers. They drop you off in the middle of nowhere, amongst half the tuk tuks in Sri Lanka, so that you need to take one if you are late. Well I was and I did. So I ran off the bus, grabbed a tuk tuk and we drove the 2 mintues to the airport. I ran up to counter looking for someone to help me. And all I see are cleaning ladies. Finally, I notice a woman on the phone who hung up to help me out. After getting connected to the internet and showing her my India visa and my flight out of India, I was able to go to security. Just as I was waiting, they called out last call for my flight. Of course once I got through, I ran to the gate. The person there reassured me I was good. But of course I was all sweaty and rushed by that point, so it didn't matter. I had to pull up the visa and flight info again before boarding. And I was finally in my seat. Where I could resume to a normal breathing pattern. Man, I'm going to have to leave even more time for my next flight. It's around midnight, so I may as well as get to the airport nice and early to get comfortable.

So I made it to India, but I'm carrying a phone that doesn't work.

What else did I do in Colombo you may be wondering. I pretty much walked around and drank tea. I walked along the ocean, checked out a few temples, explored a few parks, and did a tea crawl. There really isn't much else to do in Colombo. Or at least not that I was aware of or interested in doing. I needed some time to catch up on my next steps so it was fine with me. 

Indian Ocean and Colombo.

Viharamahadevi Park.

Sambodhi temple.

1st stop on tea crawl.