SriLanka - Day 2

Day 2

Breakfast at Amagi Lagoon

Had a spectacular breakfast by the seaside. Im talking a proper local breakfast with an array of Sri lankan curries and plenty of local fruits. The best of it all was the exquisite omelette they prepared.

Took a cab to Colombo, and our taxi driver, Manjola, was very eager to impress us so we would hire him for the entirety of our stay in the country. Gave us good advice on places to visit, activities that we should do and which ones to avoid given we did not want to visit places which were too crowded

The Three by TPV

We took the train from Colombo to Galle, it was a Saturday and the trains get pretty full with workers heading to their peri-urban towns and homes at this time. Given and knowing that, we should not have opted for the train ride, but the desire to have a localized experience sort of influenced us to go ahead with it, afterall how often do you get an opportunity to travel by train.

The views from the train, as we go all along the south west cost are supposed to be exquisite and they were except the train was so overloaded that we did not get a real opportunity to enjoy them. Passengers were literally packed like sardines and throughout the ride i did not get a chance to sit down as all seats were taken. I am confident in saying that local Pakistani trains provide a much better experience than the one we had. Note to anyone reading this, don't take the train esp 2nd class on a weekend.

The room

After a tiring train ride, found an irritating driver guy who successfully persuaded us to hire him despite numerous denails. Got to the hotel in the late afternoon, we were staying at a place near galle called 'Ahangame' at a hotel call "The Three" by TPV (TPV being the initials of three European guys who owned/ran the place and it was an awesome place. They paid such excellent attention to detail it was just awesome. Absolutely loved how they had decorated the room and the overall atmosphere there. Had a scrumptious dinner and a good sleep after a tiring day.

Sri Lanka - Day 1

Late by about a year in posting to the blog. An awesome 10-day trip to Sri Lanka in 2012. Given its proximity, affordability and sheer awesomeness, highly encourage people, especially Pakistanis to consider it for a vacation (couples. friends or family)

Day 1
Flight to Karachi, chilled out over the evening and dinner with Zeeshan, his fiance Sammer and Ahmed Khawaja from LUMS. Nice flight to Colombo...had refreshments and watched some Sri Lankan movie. Based on this experience, they need to improve a bit. 

Stayed at a place called the Amagi Lagoon which is near the airport and is absolutely fabulous. Although, Sri Lanka is probably worth a visit, all year roung, the timing of our visit was before the tourist heavy season so got a lot of privacy and quiet time, which was great!

Spacious tuk-tuk

Took a Tuktuk (like a rickshaw except its more spacious and hence comfortable) to Negombo city, and probably a 20 minute walk- to serendip bar, which i would categorize as a dhabba style bar. Found locals to be casual and fun people. Impressed by general cleanliness on the streets and the fresh air. Had a nice nights sleep at Amagi.

Concentric Circles reasoning

Here is a draft post i wrote in March 2010. Clueless what prompted it and where i wanted to take it. But dont feel like keeping it in the vault as a work-in-progress anymore. lol @ 'thinking of my own'

I have had some free time these past couple of weeks and this has allowed me to a little bit of thinking of my own. I am going to highlight one of these issues

Due to the vast disparity in the level of income between the rich and the poor in Pakistan, there are several differences which result in a large variation in the quality of their lifestyles. This often results in the lack of understanding of the behavior of the 2 categories of people.