Perhaps in contrast to the solitude of yesterday, we chose to go to Colombo just for the heck of it. We walked around the Fort, cashed a few traveller’s cheques, and strolled through the main Cargill’s as well as Laksala. There was no real reason for the trip other than for diversion. We walked down Galle Face. The grass area is all blocked off for the third phase of improvements. We had thought it was something to do with the military! This clearly is the reason for no Kite Festival this year. I hadn’t been to the Vihara Maha Davi Park since it was called Victoria Park. It’s still just as impossible as in the mid-80’s to get a good photo of City Hall’s white dome from halfway down the center of the park.
We tried an Internet business. I had all of these text files as well as my “Daily Picture Parade” photos on my camera’s memory card. They had the necessary USB connector on the PC, but the computer and connection was horribly slow. After ten minutes a single photo hadn’t completed uploading; however, the average photo from my present camera is about one and a half megabytes. While trying to upload, I opened several other Windows and was able to check my gmail. There were mostly unimportant messages. There was a nice email from a woman in Kuwait. She had seen the class photos from the Al-Bayan School in 1982. A while back I scanned them and put them on Flickr. In fact, more than seeing them; she was in one of them! I just emailed that I’d received the message and would answer more next month after getting back in Canada. So, there were no updates to my eJournal and images or Flickr today. I am starting to wonder when this will actually sit on my domain!
We at lunch at a modern-style, food court offering “village-like” food. Jay just told me the name but I didn’t catch the spelling. We started back after finding the private busses to Minuwangoda. The bus area is now huge and chaotic. It seems like there is no one who is willing to take the responsibility for the mess. We finally started back at about 3:00 pm.
I feel so sorry for those who must work downtown. It’s probably only a 35 kilometers (21 mile) trip from here. Yet, it took nearly an hour and a half each way. It is little wonder that most government and some business just don’t get work done promptly. It’s not just due to institutional lethargy although that may play a part. People must be too damned tired by the time they get there to finish anything. I have to admit to taking private, a/c coaches too. I don’t know what a government bus would have been like. For then we’d have had to breathe more of the polluted air and hear the ear-piercing noises more loudly. Why do vehicles that don’t have working taillights or even bumper seem to sport upgraded horns?
There were some upsides to the trip. First, since it was not an urgent trip, we avoided rush hours. In addition, parts of Colombo 2 are quite pretty. Lastly, even with lunch for two, the purchase of a baseball cap, and two tuk-tuk rides as well as bus fares, we spent less than $10 in total.