It is our last day and we take full advantage to have our last taste of the delicious Sri Lankan food for breakfast.
We have learned that if you are hanging out for a European meal, get ready to be overcharged and disappointed. However, we did have some fine food at the Ceylon Tea Trails which truly is top end. With the exception of the Tea Trails, the best food is in the buffets, which all become very familiar and a bit monotonous.
Everywhere the Sri Lankan food has been very good, and I am sure we will have withdrawal symptoms when we get home.
Surprisingly, Sri Lanka is not a cheap destination if you stay and eat in reasonable hotels. Food and drinks are priced at Australian levels and then add about 28% in service charges and taxes. Outside the hotels, it is cheaper, but still no a bargain.
Check out time is 12 noon and our driver will be here at 2pm to take us to the airport for our 8.30pm departure. Whilst the distance is huge, on the roads here you can only average around 40km per hour on the busy "highways".
We also have to be at the airport early because of the very high traffic loads in the terminal from 4.30pm when the airport reopens after and 8 hour closure during the day for runway repair work.
As it is or last opportunity to get some exercise before a lot of sitting around, we go for a final walk along the beach.
The sea is calmer and people are back in the water
Walking back down past the Jungle Beach restaurant, there is a lone fisherman trying his luck on the beach. Maybe he is getting the catch of the day for tonights menu. A mate is helping him get some bait.
It is already getting very hot and we need to head back to the hotel to check out. A local pointed out turtle tracks on the beach and explained that turtles are currently laying their eggs at night on this beach.
Back at the hotel in time for the 12 noon checkout, our driver is already there waiting for us. He is happy to sit around and wait till the agreed 2pm departure, but we are ready to move on, so leave the hotel at 12.30pm. It will mean sitting around at the airport for a bit longer, but we would have been sitting around at the hotel anyway. We are also not too sure how much chaos to expect at the airport.
After about an hour on the now familiar, very busy country roads, we all of a sudden encounter our first motorway. It is a joint project financed by a local company and the Chinese. Eventually it will run from Matara to the Airport, but at the moment it stops on the Northern and Southern sides of Colombo, and the connecting link is under construction. A number of transport methods are banned from the tollway.
These modes or transport are not allowed on the tollway
The airport was busy, but not chaotic. It took a little while to find our check in counter and managed to get the 4 of us through the priority check in counter using my Oneworld lifetime Silver card.
It was then a lot of waiting and sitting around in airports before we finally hit the tarmac at Kingsford Smith Airport sat just after 6pm last night.
We had a great holiday in Sri Lanka. There is some spectacular scenery, great local food and very friendly people. It is more expensive than we though it would be and there is a healthy effort to extract as many dollars out of foreign tourists as possible. Tourism infrastructure has a long way to go, but it is very worthwhile to visit at this point in their development, before it becomes too commercialised. The Chinese appear to be investing heavily in Sri Lanka.
