Seeduwa, Sri Lanka

My original plan for today was to leave real early, reach Colombo, store my luggage some where, and then check out the National Museum and as much of the city as I could . . . but I decided to alter this plan; instead I slept in a few hours, decided it wasn’t worth it to rush to and around Colombo, especially since it was bound to be raining there since it was raining in Kandy and probably all over Sri Lanka (damn you monsoon! damn you to Hell!), and figured I would rather get to the airport with plenty of time and lounge around there instead. I then showered (the water was cold again, same as yesterday), got ready, packed my bags, and then took a tuk-tuk to the Kandy Central Bus Station. From the bus station, I found the bus to Negombo, which passes by Katunayaka International Airport near Seeduwa, and climbed aboard. As with everywhere in Sri Lanka, the bus quickly filled past its capacity and then some (this is standard operating procedure in these here parts); we then drove west toward Colombo, through the rain, without any functioning windshield wipers. In the town of Kegalle, our bus stopped due to engine trouble; the driver tried to fix the problem (I’m not sure what was wrong), but needed a replacement part; so we waited for about a half hour for the part to arrive; it was then installed and the bus was functional again. We then continued our journey westward. After about four and a half hours of driving, the bus reached the airport and I exited with my luggage. I then went inside the departure building, ate some junk food since the restaurants didn’t look appetizing to me, and then waited around listening to Christmas music playing non-stop on the loud speakers before it was time to check in. When I did check in, I discovered that the Sri Lankan Airlines flight was terribly delayed; instead of departing at 19:40, we were now scheduled to depart at 01:30 and arrive in Muscat at 04:30 (standard operating procedure); so I passed through Immigration and had plenty of time to exterminate; this did allow me to catch up on typing journal entries – I suppose that’s a silver lining. After typing out some journal entries, I went to a restaurant inside the airport and used a voucher given to me by the airline company (on account of the flight being delayed) to have a plate of fried rice, vegetable matter, and a vanilla ice cream. I then worked on the journal entries some more, finally catching up again (I need to discipline myself in to writing one everyday so I don’t always have to play catch-up every three or four days). Later on I had an Americano to wake me up and get me through this late night wait. Soon the clock met midnight, and the day rolled over . . .