Monday 1st January 2024

A Happy New Year to you all, and as 2024 begins, I am back on my travels to Sri Lanka, for the fourth time in 6 years. After a fairly busy family Christmas, it all seemed rather rushed at the end, as I prepared to travel back out to Sri Lanka. I was able to have a very leisurely morning ahead of my journey, then my son Joe and his family arrived, accompanied by my other son Ben, so I ended up having quite a family send off, which I must admit was rather lovely.

Everyone walked down to Bath Bus Station with me, which was a huge help with all my luggage, and I caught the 14:45 coach to Heathrow. It only takes 2 hours to get there, and I enjoyed a very pleasant journey with no traffic delays. It all seemed a bit surreal to be heading off so quickly in the New Year, and Heathrow Airport was still festooned with Christmas decorations, and looking rather lovely - in as much as an airport can look attractive.

Previously, I had always taken 2 (or last time even 3) flights to get to Sri Lanka, but this time I allowed myself the luxury of a direct flight to Colombo. My flight was scheduled for 20:40, but as I checked in that had already been changed to 21:10, and the plane eventually took off some time after 21:30, although I was so tired by then that I fell asleep, and I didn't wake up until we were already in the air. It was going to be a long night ahead of me!

I was surprised how quickly the 10 hours passed. I watched 'Otto', a Tom Hanks film I hadn't seen before, had a fairly mundane dinner, slept a fair amount, eventually had an equally mundane breakfast, before listening to a Leonard Cohen album during the last hour of the flight. Time shifts pretty considerably when you are flying eastwards, and Sri Lanka is currently 5.5 hours ahead of the UK, so I eventually landed at Colombo Airport around 13:00 on Tuesday 2nd January.

There are no photos today, of course, as there was nothing to take, so I have included a few favourite photos from my last visit to Sri Lanka in January and February 2023, as a lovely reminder of just how beautiful this country is.








Comments

  1. AnonymousJanuary 2, 2024 at 9:14 PM

    Happy to see you there ;) Laurent SARRAZIN

    ReplyDelete

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