Here I Am

Just to make DD and Darwin a bit jealous really. Here I am, back in the island of many different names.

The flight was good, I had two seats to myself, always a bonus.

The drive into Colombo from the airport was full of totally expected surprises. Sunday afternoon meant that the roads were quiet but still life carried on.

We drove past the minibus carrying the pilot and crew of my plane and they had met with an accident. There's something so Sri Lankan about that, even though it could have happened to any crew in any country.

I sat quietly and watched Sri Lankan unfold before me. The men sitting outside their smallholdings watching the world go by, the fellows on bikes in the road. I saw one chap on a bike narrowly avoid a collision with a bus, the avoiding would have been much easier but the cyclist was somehow carrying another bike across the handlebars of the one he was riding, so braking was a bit awkward for him. In fact cycling was a bit of a tough task.

I was the only person remotely interested in the goings on as he went through a St Vitus dance of a stopping manoeuvre to try to prevent getting obliterated by the bus.

I gazed at the slum dwellings as we crossed the river into Colombo and recalled how all of this looked to me when I was ten and saw things for the first time "proper" on the same journey. Then I looked at it with eyes as big as basket balls, these days the eyes are only slightly smaller. The wonder is a different kind, the familiarity means that I look a little deeper and uncover that bit more.

Is it just me or are the people a little bit less gentle each time I come? Is the spirit slowly being worn away?

Tomorrow I'll hit the usual haunts and do some mooching about. As I type this I can hear that backdrop of noise that almost warms my heart, the mixture of diesel engine rumble and horning.

It's a totally mad place.

I love it.