Observations you won't find in the inflight magazine

Airport entertainment. Love that KL airport.
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So back to the airport.  As I was heading to my gate I found myself in a current of offloading passengers.  I stopped in my tracks out of curiosity.  Where were these people from?  They seemed a few steps out of time.  There was a  vague European quality but definitely moslem.  The women were dressed in a range from full on abiya - black from head to toe and no face but eyes.  On the other hand there were some gals straight out of some Russian brothel.  Over makeup, hyper blond dye job and slut nights out dress.  I tried unobtrusively sliding up to a conversation to overhear the language - no clue.  Bosnia?  Finally I spotted an airport person and asked "Where is that plane from?"  "Tehran." she said.  Here was a planeload of those nuclar toting fanatics.  They looked alot like the Eastern Europeans that came flooding through the wall - Needing a full makeover.  I had this sudden desire to make some contact.  Tell them I was from the US and that I did not want to bomb their country, I want the first Starbucks outlet in Tehran.  Lets invade with our greatest weapon - McDonalds.

The national museum in Colombo
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Then I enter the gate area and am struck again by a strangness.  Am I the only white person going to Sri Lanka?  What is it like to be the only one of your race on a plane, in a theatre, at a restaurant, on a bus.  In the case of a traveler it is a common occurance and one sought out.  It is part of the excitement, part of the disorientation, part of the fear - not necessarily danger but put on guard as to cultural miscues.  For example I have been around a number of Dutch recently.  I don't understand their language but I read their tone and have a good sense of their cultural expectations.  But what of the Sri Lankans.  I have already got a pre developed set of expectations.  Will I find I am creating the expectation or will it be adjusted by a larger picture.

Seredipitous find of folk dance contest at the Art museum
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What is it like to live in a country that has been at war with itself for 25 or more years?   How will the Sri Lankans compare to the Cambodians still reeling from their self destruction which was so much more vast in scope.  Or compared to the Indonesians reeling from recent spate of disasters that have them on edge as to how they can trust the future.

I landed at  Colombo airport at midnight.  It took the driver until 2:30 to get me to the apartment stay I reserved online.  Interesting note- His car ran on LPG gas.  I hadn't seen that before.  I awoke to a racket of religous noise over loudspeaker at 6am.  Met the other tenants, John, a Brit and his Sri Lankan wife Vraisey - I will have to correct this later as to how to spell her name.  They were most helpful and fed me breakfast.  Later they filled me with warnings and got me started on my day tour of Colombo.

Buddha meets the white house - well it's actually the local town hall.
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A three wheeler as they call them here took me to the National Museum.  You can get a good feel of a country by it's national museum.  I remember how fine and organized Tokyo's was.

Well, this is another country.  There is not one public toilet in the entire building.  You have to walk around back and use this oversized outhouse.  The information  was well done and readable.  But the building , like the country is both being rebuilt and is rundown all at once.  This country is crying out for a public service announcement on littering.  No one gives a thought to throwing trash anywhere.  And unlike many other countries there is not a constant cleaning up.  Driving is the same way.  No one follows much in the way of rules besides go until you have to stop or you roll off the road.

A street in the old harbor area
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I made it to the train station and arranged pretty much the rest of my visit.  I am going for a full tour package.  i just don't have the willpower to fight about prices with each and every person over each and every transaction.  For 55USD a day I am traveling and getting accomodation for the next 8 days.  I will see all the stuff I wanted to.  and I will then have a few days at the beach before I go to the great beach islands of Seychelles.

Then on the way back to the apartment I had the full on Sri Lankan  public bus packed in like sardines and forming the human sauna experience.  I kept thinking how many of my friends would be beyond their limit with these people pressed up against them giving off all this body heat.  and then the bus stops so that the little breeze that did exist is gone and nothing remains but the pressing physical heat.  Now I am back in the world of travel.