MY FIRST NIGHT IN SRI LANKA (January, 1980)

 I arrived in Colombo early in January 1980. I was to meet a friend flying in from London some few hours later, but as is nearly always the case with international flights these days, her arrival was delayed - by 12 hours!

After baggage collection (I refused offers of assistance from one of a squad of scrawny porters dressed in blue rags and barefoot) and customs clearance I made my way into the arrival hall. I was soon asked by a neatly dressed chap if I needed any help and I told him of my plans to meet this friend from London. He did not recommend sleeping the night at the airport but rather suggested that I find a hotel in Colombo for the night and arranged a taxi for me accordingly.

In short, he did nothing more than International airport information offers are required to do - he was doing his job. However there are a few things about my brief encounter with that man (my first with a Sri Lankan) that make it a pleasant memory. Firstly, it is customary for those seeking information from such people to approach them at their counter. He in fact left his counter and approached me. Secondly, there was a genuine warmth about the man that was not just ‘bunged on’ for the job, this being all the more a refreshing surprise when I learned that he was the chief Information Officer!

Image by Walter Lempen

We departed the airport by taxi for the long drive into Colombo. Though it was after midnight I remember the road still being a hive of activity. Ox cart drivers taking advantage of the cool of the night without too much competition from the daytime’s manic drivers. Pedestrians ambling along in conversation, some alone, seemingly headed nowhere in particular. Cyclists. And every mile at least one boutique or hotel (what we call restaurants or cafes) still quite alive and thriving on late night clientele.

I remember too, the shrines. This area northward up the coast from Colombo, is heavily Christian, but signs of Buddhism are evident throughout most of the country, as it was there that night. So, roadside Buddhist shrines, temples with larger than life images of the enlightened one, and illuminated five metre high statues of the Virgin Mary all blended into the scenery as we came closer to Colombo.

Colombo came as a shock. I had read much of this country before coming here and was suitably impressed by its favourable standards of education, literacy, hygiene, and housing, all of which by Asian standards, rate highly. I reasonably expected that Colombo, the capital, may show signs of Sri Lanka's achievements in these areas and that it may be free of some of the blights of other Asian cities.

I couldn't have been more wrong. To put it bluntly, Colombo is a shithole. I thought so that first night when I was genuinely surprised by what I saw and I still do. I have since of course discovered some quite pleasant areas of Colombo, but they are few. I have also discovered that despite its capital, Sri Lanka is better off than most of its Asian counterparts, but one must look for evidence of that fact outside of Colombo.

My taxi driver took me in turn to the few cheaply priced hotels we had been told to try – all full. We tried some in the medium price range - full. I refused to stay in the likes of the Intercontinental but just about everything else seemed full. I still can't believe to this day the solution my driver came up with. He said that he was going back to the airport, but as the next plane was not due until 6:00 AM, I could sleep in his car until then. After establishing that he was in fact quite serious, I thanked him profusely, accepted his offer, and we set off back to the airport. Not only did his car have lay-back seats, but neither did he charge me for the return leg to the airport. So, apart from interruption from an occasional mosquito, I got at least a few hours sound sleep in my first night in this charmed land.