Beeps, Honks and Blasts

The many noises of Colombo, I realized I can pretty much just sum then up into beeps, honks and blasts.

Beep beep beep: That would be a dehumidifier announcing that it's full again. Three times a day it will do that. The water reservoir filled with nearly 3 liters of water which is incredible. I'll motivate myself to get up and empty it and try not to spill any of the water on the floor.

Beep beep beep: That would be the trishaw slowing down and trying to get my attention "Taxi?", I wave and shake my head they continue on.

HONK HONK HONK: Yes, caps for shouting. That would be the buses in Colombo driving recklessly but at least announcing it along the way. These horns are so loud I just want to grit my teeth.

BLAAAAAAAST: That would be the air horn of the trains passing 5 stories below us. It could be just a short blast of the horn, but more often than not when we least expect it the engineer will just go crazy and hold that horn for what seems like minutes. All the while we just want to rush out and throw something at the train. Worse yet is when two trains pass each other and in some unwritten code of the rails both engineers lay on the horns as they pass each other. It is nerve wracking.

(Picture: The cursed passing trains)

Victory Day Parade

Today was the big military parade in Colombo marking the victory over the LTTE last year. The parade was supposed to be last month but the torrential rains prevented it and supposedly four soldiers were killed by lightning while practicing. I can see this as the Galle Face Green is nothing but one big open field and if your standing out there in a thunderstorm with a rifle you're just asking for it.

All week we have watched the Sri Lankan navy patrol boats in front of the apartment do their maneuvers and the build up of arms display, tanks and such at the Galle Face Green and something we never experienced living here high speed fly buys of the Sri Lankan Air Force.

The government made today a bank holiday which pretty much is an excuse for any business to close. Couple this with closing the main street through Colombo thus making bus disrupting buses and you make for one quiet city this morning. Hardly anyone was at work.

Come the time for the big display my coworkers and I went out on the roof to watch the show.
First came the Russian built Hind helicopters, then the Navy boats of all sizes followed by turbo-prop plane fly overs (They had some really old planes) and eventually the jets did an afterburner fly over, quite loud.

Funny thing about the Navy is that they have a big troop carrier that has been used as a dinner cruise ship since the end of the war. I'm not kidding. They painted 'Visit Sri Lanka 2011' in big letters across the side, string lights on it and does sunset dinner cruises complete with the Navy band.

Well being that it's still pretty much the largest ship in the Sri Lankan Navy's inventory it did its part in the show, I thought it was funny that here it was being escorted by all of these gun boats and 'Visit Sri Lanka 2011' is painted across the side.

Story about the parade:
http://www.island.lk/index.php?page_cat=article-details&page=article-details&code_title=202
Story about the dinner cruise ship:
http://www.facebook.com/JetLiner.cruise?v=app_2347471856

Book Corner - Finished Reading

Letters from Steven: Stories from the First Solo Walk Around the World

by Steven Newman

Hardback
367 pages
Fiction

I really enjoyed this book which was letters that the author had written and sent to a newspaper column in the Cappers Weekly which catered towards rural America. The book is by all means not a travel guide, but stories from his life on the road, people he met, things he did during his walk around the world, what an incredible feat.

Sick Day

Last night as I was on the couch I felt my belly was kind of tight, not
the good tight. More like the scene from "Aliens" tight (No, not that
scene!). I woke up in the middle of the night for what turned out to be
an all night marathon of running to the bathroom and on top of that I
was nauseous. I emailed my coworker to tell him I wasn't coming in. I
spent the entire day today in bed moaning and groaning, the only thing
I could drink was water. I tried an electrolyte drink but that made me
sick. It wasn't until 5PM today that I was able to get out of bed and
into the living room.

Stomach still feels yucky but I think I will be able to eat some toast
and bananas.