SRI LANKA: Beyond My Expectations

It was another mission trip that I had to take, and at that time Colombo was my next destination. The mission was to attend and deliver presentation at the APFED Workshop on 14 - 17 October 2008.

At first I was taken aback to learn that the flight will be leaving Bangkok on the ungodly hour of almost midnight. Entering the check in lounge, my back was patted by someone, who is no other than my former supervisor at UNEP, who was at that time working in an institute in Japan. As we landed in Colombo airport at around 2 am, we were greeted by some familiar and friendly faces - of whom were our partners of the project that I was dealing with.

On our way to the hotel in Mount Lavinia - a suburb out of Colombo in which the meeting was going to be held and where we will spend the nights, we were stopped by the policemen, who were asking us questions pertaining our purpose of visit and requiring us to show identification in the form of our passport. It was cold outside that whenever the car windows were opened, we could feel the crisp air and the thin breeze. As we could show our true intentions of visiting Colombo to attend a meeting, these kind policemen let us go.

As it turned out, Sri Lanka was one of the most beautiful country that I have been to. I was also given the courtesy to have a city tour around Colombo city by my old friend, who was a former partner of a project that I dealt with when I worked at UNEP. The city preserves the old colonial buildings that are truly mesmerizing. Whereas the hotel that we stayed in, Mount Lavinia Hotel, is a very well-maintained colonial building, which used to be the home of a Governor General back in the colonial days. There was a romance story behind it as well, because the hotel is a legacy of the colonial heritage that stands as a monument to the forbidden love of the Governor with a local dancer.

The hotel is facing the beautiful view of the beach, and is merely 12 km from the Colombo city centre. During the coffee breaks of the meeting, the participants were hanging on the terrace that faced the beach and swimming pool. Here is one of the pictures taken during the breaks.

(Right to left: Ikuyo Kikusawa (IGES), Henk Verbeek (UNEP), Tomoko Noguchi (IGES), and myself).