New here? You can start here, and check out all of our weekly posts here.
IT’S OFFICIAL: WE’RE IN SRI LANKA! After 36 hours, 7 different airports, and 5 flights we landed in Colombo last night!
We went from Malta to Sicily to Milan to Dubai to the Maldives and finally to Colombo. And felt robbed in Dubai paying 10 euros for one coffee and one water. Despite that, the journey was exhausting but worked out great. We had no immigration issues and found the whole process of entering Sri Lanka simple and easy: you pay for an E-Visa online before the trip and prove your first stay in the country when arriving at the airport. Then you get a sunny smile and a warm welcome!
Getting a taxi to Colombo though was a completely different story… The number of local drivers offering taxi rides to us at the airport exit was overwhelming, to say the least. The prices were also not great, at least double what Uber was offering on their app, but Uber drivers are not allowed inside the airport.
Since we arrived late at night, we didn’t want to wander around the area looking for the Uber driver so we haggled hard and got the cheapest taxi available: 10.000 LKR (27,54 euros – almost as much as getting a taxi from Barcelona city center to the airport!).
Sri Lanka is right now facing an unprecedented socioeconomic crisis and therefore petrol pumps are nearly dry. Unfortunately, the high prices of transportation are going to be a common occurrence during our trip. Add our pale skin and high stature, and we get a foreigner bonus on top of every journey.
When getting to the hotel the street had no energy and everything was pitch black (except for the reception guy who was holding a small lantern). The taxi driver received a phone call – “My friend from the airport…” and passed it on to Bruno. It was the man we negotiated prices with at the airport and of course, he was charging us more for the trip than we had agreed. In total, we paid 11300 LKR from the airport to the hotel, about 31 euros.
During check-in, we faced a new challenge: communication! The reception guy informed us that there would be no energy during our stay (at least that’s what we understood), and so we tried to cancel the booking – no way we could survive this heat with no fan or AC. The booking is non-refundable… We paid only 17 euros a night but our budget is of 40 euros a day, which meant we would have lost half of our budget if we did indeed cancel it.
After lots of talks (all under lantern light), he said: “Madam, the energy is coming back in 5 minutes. The power cut is only temporary”. We looked at him and couldn’t understand why on earth he didn’t say so from the beginning lol We later discovered that the power cuts are a daily occurrence at the moment because of the crisis and are happening in order to save energy. So every day from 4-6 pm and 8-10 pm we’ll have no energy at the hotel.
Once everything was sorted (and energy was back!), we were very well received. People here seem to be very nice and friendly, always smiling and ready to help. And so we got to our rooms and had the best sleep we have had in AGES! We do appreciate our friends’ sofa but a proper bed and proper pillows are everything.
Moving forward to today, we woke up late and decided to wander aimlessly to get a taste of the city and local culture. Our first impression is that Colombo is huge! Traffic is chaotic and organized at the same time (can’t explain it!), the streets are large and full of people, and we felt like celebrities: everyone looked at us all the time.
From a woman’s perspective (hello! Nick here), this can be quite overwhelming. Having men looking at you at all times is uncomfortable and more so if you’re wearing shorts for example. Please note that this is just a personal feeling – we saw two girls, who were too foreigners, walking around in shorts and they seemed pretty comfortable.
Once again we had to pay more for our TukTuks since no driver would accept the ride from the Uber app and visited Gangaramaya Park (we asked the driver to go to Beira Lake and he dropped us halfway there here – not sad though the place is beautiful!), the Colombo City Centre Mall and the Lotus Tower, which was unfortunately closed and well guarded by armed soldiers. We did try to walk to Beira Lake but it was also closed by the army.
We have also seen gas stations being guarded by armed soldiers and kilometric lines for petrol. On our way back to the hotel the TukTuk driver told us that he had to wait in the queue for 3 days to get only 5 liters which cost him 2500 LKR (7 euros) and that these would only last for about 3 hours. For context, the minimum wage in Sri Lanka is 10,000 LKR per month. People here are really struggling…
We’re at the hotel now writing this and digesting everything we saw today, what a day! Being from Brazil this first day was a huge cultural shock, but we loved every minute of it. We do live for the thrill of the unknown!
And if you still don’t follow us on INSTAGRAM, do GIVE US A FOLLOW, and go check our stories for daily videos of this trip! Let’s hop with us on this journey!
