Ben Welsher | Writings

Day 3 – Galle Colombo’s inexpensive but inextensive (don’t check your dictionaries) charms receded into the distance as we pulled out of Fort Station. We traded urban bustle for serene blue sea and as our train hugged the south coast nothing lay beyond the horizon but water and ice. I sat in the door of the train to watch the altered world pass by. Shacks lined the track and dotted the beach, a meagre existence for sure but one soothed perhaps by the constant crash of waves. We passed a sign ‘navel gazing ahead’. Do they look beyond the horizon the people within? Or can any of us not? Aren’t we all born of a planet where a journey can only end in a practical or emotional sense rather than a geographical one? There is a need to push our imaginary boundaries even when the desert ahead seems endless. Perhaps it is courage to stay or perhaps it is courage to resist that urge to stray. I should think that our lives are long enough to do both. Galle swelters on the Southern tip of the isla

Day 1 - Colombo The city awoke early and so, after 10 hours in the air, did we. The steaming heat had already settled on Colombo and the first drop of perspiration trickled down my brow. The Sri Lankans have embraced the Ryanair concept of airport naming and 'Colombo' airport is a full two hours taxi ride from the city proper, still at £12 for the fare our complaints were few. Glossy billboards extolling our Western mores marked our path, the abnormally whitened faces in contrast to the populace about. But here we were, drunken concept made real and many miles of (malaria) pills 'n' thrills and bellyaches lay ahead. I confess the long demanded excitement was quickly subsumed by practicality and the as yet, planning being what it was, unfulfilled need for accommodation. If only there were a place where we could have-a-good-time, possibly with a Native American, a Policeman, a cowboy and that other one? There was and at £3.50 a night represented a very good deal. Colomb