Wednesday, February 5^th 2020

Colombo, Sri Lanka

Trying to be a tour escort

When we walked out on to our balcony this morning it was hot, hot, hot already – and very humid. At least it didn’t look like it was going to rain. Yay!

The coaches were lined up, just waiting for the ship to unload the masses of passengers heading out on their tours.

Today we are going to be part of those masses.

With Kim still being in the hospital in Dubai, I had volunteered to help Deirdre, the Virtuoso Voyages host, with her clients for their tour of Colombo.

Now the last time I had offered to help out with a group activity was in 1993 when our middle son Mark was in kindergarten. It was the annual visit to Lincoln Park Zoo, and usually they only needed 4 parents to help escort the students. However, Mark’s class was a particularly difficult one, and for this outing they wanted at least 8 parents. Always happy to help out, and take a day off from work, I volunteered to help out.

Things went well at first. I checked off the list to make sure that all of the children were present and accounted for, and off we went. Things went well with the penguins and lions, but when we reached the elephants 2 of the boys got into a fight, which I had to try to break up. Somehow my sunglasses got destroyed, but that wasn’t the only casualty, one of the youngsters lost a tooth and was bleeding profusely. That minute I vowed that I would never, ever be a group leader again.

So there I was in the Champagne Bar this morning at 8:45 AM armed with my magic marker and checklist ensuring that everyone was present and accounted for. Hoping and praying that the same thing would not happen again. Looking at the guests on the tour however, they looked like a calm and pleasant group, and I was not expecting any violence.

We climbed into the 2 coaches, and having done a head count three times as I got a different number each time, off we set on our tour of Colombo. Pradeep our guide pointed out all the important buildings as we made our way to our first stop, Independence Square. They had celebrated Independence Day the previous day, so there was much activity there, and we had to clamber over the temporary structures that were being dismantled before we could go anywhere. Absolutely a fall hazard I thought. Luckily everyone was sure footed, and there were no calamities. Phew.

Our next stop was at the Dilmar Tea showroom where we stood through a presentation on tea in Sri Lanka, and then sat and relaxed as we got to sample different teas, accompanied by delicious biscuits.

On our way back to the bus we encountered a snake charmer. Just my luck I thought, one of our guests is going to be attacked by a cobra, but they all gave the snake a wide berth, and safely entered the coach again. I did the head count. Everyone was there. Things were going well.

No visit to Colombo is complete without visiting one of the many beautiful temples. We stopped at the Asokaramaya Buddhist Temple. After much discussion about leaving our shoes on the bus, or at the door to the temple (someone’s shoes had been stolen on a previous trip), one of our guests said she would sit and monitor our shoes at the entrance to the temple.

The temple was a small one, but there were many Buddhas who were standing, sitting, lying down and climbing a ladder. There was also a large ficus religiosa in the grounds. It was all very interesting, but I do wish I had brought socks with me. The pavement was very hot; there were ants everywhere, and sticks and stones on the ground. Unpleasant.

Everyone, back on the bus! The head count is correct, let’s get going again.

No tour is complete without a shopping stop, and ours was at Barefoot Ceylon, a shop with an amazing collection of fabrics. There are beautiful place mats and napkins, bags, cushion covers, tablecloths, wall hangings. We spent about 40 minutes shopping, and then it was time to herd everyone back on to the coaches. We were nearly there – just one straggler and a gentleman who was helping her.

I went over to see if I could speed them up, after all everyone else was already on the coach. Well it appeared that she had tried to purchase a skirt. She said that a saleslady had asked her to give her money and the skirt to a salesman and go upstairs to the till. She found her skirt near to the till, but no sign of the salesman or her money. When she tried to find the salesman and get a receipt, the staff basically accused her of trying to steal the skirt.

So after much arguing they agreed to show us the security camera films, and sure enough there she is giving money to a salesman. The problem was he was not an employee, and could be seen running out of the store. OK, so he had stolen her money, but she had given it to him on instruction from the saleslady – who was now denying that the interaction occurred although they could clearly be seen interacting on the security film.

I would have been quite happy paying for the skirt and getting out of there, but I knew that really wasn’t the right thing to do, especially as they were now accusing our guide of working in league with the thief. He was clearly not going to let things go.

The store manager kept on insisting that she pay for the skirt, and was very rude to us. We kept saying that she would not have given the money to the fake salesman if not instructed to do so by the saleslady.

Things got quite nasty. Finally 45 minutes later after involving our tour company’s manager, the tour company agreed to pay for the skirt, and we could all head out to lunch. We had one very dissatisfied client. Not at all what I wanted on my 2^nd attempt at being an escort.

I also had another 17 unhappy, hungry folks waiting on the bus.

Lunch was at Ocean at the Kingsbury Hotel. The Kingsbury hotel was one of the hotels hit in the Easter Sunday bombings a while back. I was hoping our group didn’t remember that. On arriving in the hotel lobby our bags needed to go through an X-ray machine, and we went through a metal detector. I wander if this is common in all hotels now, or just the Kingsbury after the bombing.

The folks on the other bus were already eating and drinking, and having a good time. We had some catching up to do.

Ocean is a seafood restaurant, and the food was absolutely delicious. This part of the tour was certainly a huge success. And the free wifi was much appreciated especially as there is no wifi at the port. Instead of being engaged in lively conversation the group was engrossed in their mobile phones.

Everyone was looking happy again as we climbed on to the coach one last time. I counted and sure enough everyone was there. Yay, I didn’t lose anyone.

It was a short ride back to the port. Colombo has no cruise terminal, but there is a row of tents with vendors selling the usual souvenirs and T-shirts. We managed to find a few things to buy before heading back on board. It was extremely windy, and we almost got blown over.

It was great to be able to finally talk to Brian, and I spent ages sitting out on the balcony chatting on the phone. I’m so looking forward to him coming on board at our 2^nd Singapore stop.

Having had a huge late lunch we decided to skip dinner altogether, and watched Ad Astra on TV. It was actually a very pleasant and relaxing way to spend the evening.

We were due to sail at 8:30, but didn’t actually sail until 11:30. I’m not sure what the cause of the delay was. We will have to wait until the morning I guess.