I've just confirmed the hotel reservation for the first few nights of our trip, at the Galle Face Hotel in Colombo. I'm really looking forward to this; while it's expensive to get all the way over to Sri Lanka, you can live remarkably well once you're there, given the incredible exchange rate. Even with the dollar dropping like a stone.The only time I've ever stayed in a five-star hotel before was in '95, the last time we were in Sri Lanka -- it was the Taj Samudra, which was incredibly opulent. I thought about booking there again, but the Galle Face has a certain reputation. Established in 1864, it's a classic example of a long-gone Victorian era. One of the strangest things about spending time in Sri Lanka is the contrast between ancient British splendors and the contemporary city. I'm looking forward to documenting some of that in photographs and prose.
Karina and I are planning to live fairly luxuriously for the two weeks of the trip she'll be there; pure relaxed tourism. :-) See the sights, visit the temples, climb the mountains, and not neglecting the shopping, of course. Once she leaves, I'm planning to scale back and spend more time living and eating like the locals do, just writing during the day, walking around the city. We'll see how it goes.
I find the photo below incredibly surreal. Very Alice in Wonderland.
