Paradise Lost - ( for some )

Dave says: This is a very beautiful place and the people we have encountered have been so friendly - even the stranger on the street asking if we need help. Of course, recovering from jetlag. which continues to be a problem, we play the 'colonial' on the veranda drinking our gin and tonics - a drink we rarely have at home but has been a daily ritual in our visits to the tropics. I'm sure if we continue travelling to these places our brains will become like swiss cheese or whatever the fallout of gin is!

Anyway, whilst in the midst of our G & T a load, thundering roar comes down the beach. I know what it is immediately having always thrilled at the Blue Angels displays during Fleet Week over the SF Bay. This was different though because I realised that they were returning to Colombo after having delivered a payload of death and misery somewhere up north. I learnt that this was a twice daily trip these fighters made and it made me rethink my Fleet Week excitement.

Our trip into Colombo had many further reminders that we were in a war zone with many soldiers in a variety of uniforms in sandbagged machine gun outposts throughout the city. Not too unlike London during their troubles some years ago but here I'm not conversant with the details and hesitant to ask. Traffic is reduced to a crawl sometimes as we go through checkpoints - our tuk-tuk was stopped and the driver was questioned whilst an eye from the soldier remained on us. The driver turned, "She wants to know where you are from". "California", we said and we waited a further 10 minutes whilst a helicopter circled our area. I'm hoping that their presence will be less as we leave the city but that remains to be seen.