The flight from Karachi
to Colombo is approximately 3 and
half hours however Sri Lankan airlines flight was before time today. It arrived
20 minutes early at about 9PM taking
the opportunity I went into the Duty free shop which is mainly full of
electronic items, cigarettes, foreign liquor. And a variety of chocolates. I
the girl I wish to
buy some thing for a Sri Lankan friend , what kind of chocolates they might
like she very confidently said buy some kitkat they will like it. I guess she
herself certainly liked the kitkat.
I saw there was a strange trick on the duty free the price
was written as US$ 20 if you buy 3 or more.or buy 2 get 3 price US$ 12 however
if you want to buy 1 it will not be US$ 12 .
I did buy about 4 packs of chocolates for my friends Kosala
Khalid and Priantha. As I entered in the customs area after getting the bag I
wanted to declare that I had 4000 dollars so I went to the red channer to
declare they said please go to the duty officer. I told the duty officer I need
to get a declarion certificate as I will
need to deposit some money in a bank account in Sri
lanka . He first said I did not need one and
I could just take the dollars, as the amount is very low.
On my insisting he agreed in a very friendly manner. I asked
him how Sri Lanka
is doing he said there is a boom in tourism and things are really going in the
right direction. He made me fill out a form and went to some other officer to
get the certificate signed. It was rather quick he came and gave me the
certificate.. I started to go now from the green channel as I had nother else
of value to declare but the guy at the gate stopped and wanted to check my bag.
I must mention they are very friendly at the customs they checked all my stuff
and even check my laptop and kept knoking my bag to see if there was something
hidden inside, that stage also passed rather easily and I moved on. At the exit
gate on left side all the drivers and guides were standing. I didn’t see my
name any where so I just mover on to people sitting down and see if some one
was holding my name but none. As I moved back to the drivers there came my
driver holding a garland.
The car was parked in the parking which is located on left
side just 1 minute from the arrival gate, although he wanted to bring the car
to the gate I preferred to go and sit in the the car from parking.
The driver was a Christian and he said he was 32 and was
getting married next month. One interesting thing which amazed me was that he
said he will move to his wife’s home and this is a common thing in Sri
Lanka specially in Muslims. When I thought
of it it is very practical as a daughter can take much better care of her
parents than a son or son’s wife hence due to this tradition there are no
problems of mother & law and wife.
He also said his marriage will be in 2 parts first from the
girl’s side that will cost around 5 lacs and will be paid by the girl’s parents
and 2nd day will be from the boy’s side this for him will cost
approximately 4 lacs he said.
He was some what in a hurry so he dropped me at the cinnamon
grand hotel’s gate and went away.
The check in was smooth they asked for a credit card but I
said I will be paying cash for extras so they accepted it and put me on “paying
cash” basis. Cinnimon grand is a five star hotel it has all the facilities of a
five star hotel. They have 2 block for rooms one is the new one and other is
the old one, both blocs are renovated and offer the same quality of rooms. The
new block however is at a little distance from the breakfast restaurant so they
have a special breakfast room at the ground floor of the new blocks.
The room is perfectly decorated with modern furniture and a
very nice working table there was a small abstract style tray with one Chinese
apple kept on it.
The room also had a tea and coffee make which used
immediately to make a cup of tea. The wifi was not available in the room but
they had a data port and cable to connect the LAN of the computer in the room.
I was a bit tired so after taking tea and checking my emails
I went to bed and tried to sleep but the whole atmosphere and probably th tea
did let me sleep but I just kept crawling and slept for a few hours.
