1st March

Finally, Colombo

We finally arrived in Colombo, after being on the travelling for 25 hours. There being no stopover between the flights meant Charlie and I are both jet-lagged.

The traffic from the airport through Colombo to Mount Lavinia was bedlam, and our driver was apparently very rude and upset the lady of the house where we are staying, who complained to Impakt Aid and suggested they don't use him any more!

March the hottest month

March is the hottest month here - it is quite a bit hotter than when we were here in November and December - and that is saying something! Rain is apparently a distinct possibility. Not today though - clear blue sky and intense heat today.

Jet lag

We rang Aruni and Shane of Impakt (both of whom we worked with when we here with Arabella, Jo and Holly in November and December) who are running the Teardrop Relief funded programme out here, and then we both collapsed into jet- lagged sleep.

Sri Lankan hospitality

The lady of the house where we are staying has very kindly insisted that we borrow her spare mobile phone. I explained that we were leaving for the East in a few days, but that doesn't seem to be a problem, and she said we could return it when we get back to Colombo. Typical Sri Lanken hospitality - nothing is too much trouble!

We had dinner with Shane, which was great - it's so good to see a familiar face (even though when we first met he had hair - now he has shaved it all off! Much more sensible in this heat really.)

Bus in trouble

Tomorrow's venue has changed from the itinerary, as the Teardrop Relief Playbus (which we toured on in December, once it was eventually liberated from Customs at Colombo - see Bella's November/December diary) has broken down! It has developed gearbox problems and the right gearbox oil is apparently hard to find both in Sri Lanka and the in the UK. Impakt Aid (who are running the Teardrop programme so well) are on the case though, and Shane will give us a new itinerary when we set off tomorrow.