The Martin's Blog

 Helen  This is the traveling day from Sri Lanka to Jaipur, India.  It is another one of those long days on planes, airports, and cars.  We drove to the Colombo airport with Traci and her family in the chauffeured van and met the other travelers at the airport.  With parking being such a problem in Colombo, Mano, Traci’s husband, decided it was better to rent a vehicle with a driver rather than just a car and drive it himself as we do.

 We had to fill out departure forms at the airport and as I was doing it I came to the visa number…I said, ”I am not giving my visa number to anyone; why do they need it?”  Tom replies, “they mean the visa number from your passport for India not your credit card!!”  I can tell already that it is going to be a long trip.  It was a 2.5 hour flight to Bombay (Mumbai) with a four hour layover there and then another 1.5 hour flight to Jaipur.  We will be staying at the Chokhi Dhani ,Ethnic Village Resort, a 5 star hotel about 3 miles out of town; it is a lovely complex arranged as a village with rooms located around the grounds. 

Our room is isolated on a second level with a circular room and private balcony.

Sounds quite plush and really is with a few problems, the main one being that the toilet tank leaks and we are constantly standing in water while we take care of business there.  The air conditioner is quite loud, but hey we have it, and it reminds us of the rolling ocean of our beach home in Matara.  One interesting thing is that when we open the balcony doors in the morning, before it gets too hot, we often have visiting sparrows come into our room for brief stays. It is not always easy to get these visitors to leave when we have to lock up the room when we go out. The main door is wooden with two sides which you pull together then take the chain and insert it over the hook and finally lock it with a big brass lock and key.

When we arrived at the complex, there was a dinner waiting for us even though it was after 10 pm.  We thought we would grab just a bite, but ended up eating quite a bit and it was delicious.  The food here is not spicy and we enjoy the various tastes.