Bonzer Words!: Arriving In Colombo
...Stepping up to the counter with my passport, I noticed that he did not wear a watch confirming my belief that being mindful of the time was not particularly harmonious with tropical living...
Gehan Wijesinha tells of arriving in Sri Lanka on a hot steamy night.
The plane landed after midnight. The warm humid air struck me like a breaking wave even before I reached the gangway. The tropical atmosphere invaded my nostrils, sending a fragrant bouquet of Frangipani, Jasmine and myriad other sensations blasting through me, invigorating my very soul.
Drunk on this heady scent, I carefully descended the steps, one at a time to avoid breaking my neck this early into my holiday. I was perspiring. Beads of sweat ran slowly down my forehead and back. I couldn’t tell whether this was because of my anticipation and anxiety or the heat and humidity. The sound of the crickets carried in the muggy atmosphere, resonating in my ears in a buzzing welcome. Finally, I had arrived at my destination of which I had dreamed of for months.
We tumbled out onto the tarmac, filling up the waiting passenger transporters that resembled long low buses with their seats removed, for a jerky ride to the terminal. Although groggy with sleep and confused by the jet-lag, we passengers stumbled on board, holding onto the hand railings and straps while the transporters headed for the terminal, bouncing their spicy, sweaty and groggy passengers against each other. Thankfully, the airport seemed to have been sprayed for mosquitoes for they were noticeably absent. Maybe our hour of arrival was a little too late for them too.
On arrival at the terminal, a booming voice rang out: 'Please form a line and wait your turn!' ordering all of us to queue up to get our passports stamped before being allowed into Colombo. Watching the hordes disembarking from the transporters, making their way into the queues made me realize that far more people had been crammed into the aircraft than I had imagined possible. Maybe it was my mind playing tricks on my ability to estimate the apparent growing, disembarking population, but already most of whom were ahead of me in the queue.
Feeling tired and lethargic I was determined to clear customs and the passport control as soon as possible, jumping from one queue to another to achieve this goal, but found the fast moving queue which I joined soon became the slowest, as is usually the case.
Bleary-eyed customs officers, policemen and soldiers, some armed to the teeth, wandered about fighting off their overriding desires to fall asleep. Doubtlessly, they had rostered on for duty to ensure the security of their country from undesirable arrivals, at this late hour when most normal people are asleep in their beds. Evidently there were no undesirable entrants in this group of arrivals, because none of the soldiers, policemen or policewomen showed even the slightest bit of interest in the flowing mass that moved like a river of molasses.
My internal clock chimed away and the cuckoo within it was screaming its silent alarm, totally confused by my incongruous behaviour and the hour indicated by the clocks on the wall, telling me that I should be in bed too. Bedtime was still hours away. Unhurriedly, the queue shortened, inuring me to the tropical schedule, by which I expected to set my agendas for the next three weeks. The passport personnel appeared to have mastered this technique. Curiously, I looked at the man’s wrist when he called out: 'Next please.' Stepping up to the counter with my passport, I noticed that he did not wear a watch confirming my belief that being mindful of the time was not particularly harmonious with tropical living.
My passport stamped, I moved to collect my luggage. By the time I identified and removed my bag, it had already ridden several laps on the carousel, with all the other passengers’ suitcases, boxes, packages and backpacks.
The customs inspector was red-eyed, but totally alert. 'Have you got anything to declare?' he asked in a very friendly manner, speculating that I was unlikely to be bringing anything naughty into his country. No doubt my bag had been passed through some x-ray machine to confirm his belief in my answer, long before he asked the question. 'Nothing to declare,' I said as he waved me on: 'Welcome to Sri Lanka.'
By 2am, as I exchanged $500 spending money for 50,000 thousand Rupees, easily five months salary for most of the people that I had just passed, my thoughts quickly turned to catching a taxi to my hotel. Tomorrow I would explore this wonderful tropical paradise. Right now what mattered was that, I had arrived and that sleep beckoned!
© Gehan Wijesinha
