13. – 28.4 2019

On Saturday 13^th April 2019, taxi took us to Heathrow for a direct flight at 21.20 with Sri Lanka’s airline. Steve managed to get us all to the First Class lounge he can use as a BA Gold member flying so frequently, and we started off with a glass of bubbly and a nice dinner!

Flight UL504 on an Airbus A330-200 was absolutely full and we had the middle row 60 out of 65, so right at the back. Kids know the drill – buckle up, headphones on and use the in flight entertaining system while you are drinking and eating food. As it was a night flight, we all had some sleep before landing at 12.00 local time in full heat with 32C.

We were taxied to our three bedroom apartment taking it via shop for milk and bread and some eggs. We didn’t know at that point, that these three staple ingredients will form our diet for the second week of our stay due to the tragic events which happened on Easter Sunday.

We spend first few days sleeping and chilling as our body clocks were completely upside down. The apartment complex had it’s own gym and swimming pool complex and we spend every afternoon in water. Sun between 11.00-15.00 is extremely strong and the best place for you is in air-conditioned apartment or shopping mall. Celebrating our 19^th wedding anniversary was a “tuk tuk” ride (three wheeler with a fantastic turning circle!) to the Cinnamon Grand Hotel and having a buffet dinner in one of their finest restaurants called Taprobane – this restaurant was one of the three, which were later bombed.

We booked a three-day mini holiday in a boutique hotel complex, on the other side of the island, in Trincomalee, 6 hours in a minibus, where until 2009, was a civil war and no tourists would sensibly go there.

Their motto being “Where heaven comes to Earth” and we can only agree – the stay was a real treat for us all, especially myself as to not needing to do any cooking or cleaning. Making friends was easy (one family from Manchester who has relocated to Bahrain), kids loved being in the pool for hours and what is it not to like drinking and eating outside all day long larking by the pool! We had one of the most amazing experience when we all went snorkeling to see the corals and lots of fish. We were so privileged to see a hugs turtle and the boys even managed to dive and swim with her in deep water like Mermaids.

Arriving back to Colombo at midnight on Saturday tired, but full of fabulous memories, in preparation for a “working” week of finding out about school and choosing an apartment to live in – well, that was the plan. Things changed when on Sunday morning hearing some explosions (though it was construction as there is lots of building going around) and lots of ambulances on route – well, you think someone is having a bad day. It wasn’t until Steve’s colleague called us at 10am to let us know that three hotels and three churches were bombed and warned us not to leave the apartment. What an Easter Sunday to remember. Planned afternoon tea with scones and crustless sandwiches with Steve’s friend’s family went out of the window so we invited some people by the pool to join us.  The atmosphere was sombre and everyone was talking about it, but it felt we were sheltered, we were in a “cotton wool” of our apartment complex, where we spent the whole week with one outing to the school to meet the headmaster and one outing to look at a house and apartment with stopping at a French bistro for lunch. Pizza Hut across the road was a great excuse to get take away for dinner so you can imagine kids were very happy – pizza is their favourite food!

We were monitoring situation and trying to communicate with friends and family making sure they knew we were safe. Even though social media were blocked by Sri Lanka’s government, Steve managed to keep us on using a special service linked to London – clever technology.

Journey back home was interesting, especially the security operation at the airport as Steve warned us the airport may be an easy target to terrorist. Going through  the airport we welt the country has learned and the security was tightened up and pretty slick, we could relax knowing we are behind security in reach of a plane taking us home.

We landed on Saturday 28^th April in the evening with Taxi waiting for us. I have to admit, I was relieved to reach my front door to feel safe.

Kids complained of cold the next day and nearly suffered with “hypothermia” – we got used to 32C and we had 9C in the UK, they were wearing winter coats!

Rennie