Monday, October 3, 2011

Neverlost-Everlost:Quel Voyage

Quel voyage!
Thursday was a rather important day at work. I had planned a client teleconference at 10, a new business development meeting from 11-1, a second new business development meeting at 2, and found myself at 5 still not back in Paris. This I mention because I had also planned to go home, finish my reports, pack, do an errand for my friend, and leave for the airport by 7:45 that evening. Time was running out. It didn’t help that my client report came back immediately with suggested changes.
But there I was somehow at 7:45 waiting on the street for my taxi which was exceptionally late arriving. At 8 a taxi finally arrived, explaining that the first taxi had had an accident en route and this fine gentleman was in fact the replacement.
Never mind I was on my way. I was greeted by a long queue at Charles de Gaulle for Qatar economy, and then I was on board the flight leaving for Doha where I was to meet my friend Alison somewhere in Duty Free. And sure enough there she was between me and the duty free alcohol. What a surprise.


Next stop Colombo. Arrived approximately 30 minutes late, found our driver, withdrew 50,000 Sri Lankan rupees (just felt wrong) and started the next leg of the trip by car to Hikkaduwa. You remember it was already a long day, going on 16 hours of travel for me. Well we spent 2 hours driving from the airport into Colombo to pay our travel agent, and another 2 hours driving out of Colombo, followed by 2 hours on the road, to at last arrive at the house in Hikkaduwa tired and hungry. For those of you who know me, the only thing worse than me tired and hungry is me tired hungry and cold. Some might say the difference is marginal.
At this point however things were looking up. The house is absolutely beautiful, big, lots of common space and also huge bedrooms for when we need to have time alone. The caretaker, his wife, and the ancient security guard all greeted us on the front porch. They showed us around, and then realizing we really hadn’t eaten all day, sent the night watchman for some food. We were told to expect fish and vegetables, but actually received something quite different. Hard to describe really but welcome. A couple of cocktails by the pool, and we both collapsed in our respective canopy beds complete with gauzy mosquito netting. A busy Thursday-become Friday was finally over.

1 comment:

  1. I was going to ask if that orange thing on the bed was alive, but I've already read your next post.

    Glad you finally arrived. Having cocktails by the pool is at least a nice way to end a marathon day.

    ReplyDelete

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