Back from Colombo

I have returned from Sri Lanka after spending 2 Day there over New Years Eve (NYE). The crew and I spent NYE having drinks in my suite (captains get suites at The Galadari Hotel) since all night clubs and bars were closed due to the tsunami. Colombo was unaffected and life there seems to be going on as normal. There are white flags everywhere which is a sign of mourning. We were advised not to visit the disaster area due to the stench and possibility of disease.
On the1st the first officer (Rhiad from Tunisia) and I took a hotel car to Kandy (middle of Sri Lanka) to see the Elephant Orphanage which is only 1 of 2 in the world they say, the other being in the Royal Chitwan National Park in Nepal (I visited there about a year ago). The orphanage has 60 elephants including 1 that has only three legs due to a land mine - very interesting to see it walk! We continued to look around Kandy which is a very beautiful city but very over priced because of the tourist. Kandy is only about 140 km from Colombo but the drive there can take 3 hours and is not for the faint hearted. The local buses drive at incredible speed and realise that cars coming the opposite direction will leave the road to give way to them (which our driver had to do several times as we just closed our eyes!). On the 2nd I went to a shopping mall called Majestic City, and bought 21 DVDs and a pair of Levi’s 505 for a total of US$58 – cheap!
I returned to the hotel and had a workout in the gym and spent some time by the pool. The flight back to Doha was interesting for several reasons. Due to the high temperature and humidity (28C/84F and almost 100%) at Colombo, when the air-conditioning is operating in the cabin of the aircraft, a fog forms in the cabin (due to cooling the air to its saturation point). It can be so bad that you can not see 3 rows and passengers get lost trying to find their seats! The other thing that happened in flight when I went to use the toilet was a passenger tried to get aggressive with me and started shouting at me because his vegetarian meal had a salad with some egg in it and he had a British passport (really!). When I offered him the option of calming down or being arrested… he chose to calm down. We have a big problem with people from Sri Lanka, India, Pakistan and Bangladesh who have ‘British Passports’ and think that they deserve special treatment (they even ask to use the toilet for British Passport holders in flight!).
I am off for the next 2 days and will try to improve the layout of this website a bit. I have discovered how to turn on the comments with out having to be a member...so now you can post comments! Hope all is well.