The Martin's Blog

One Month to Go!  Helen – This morning as we were eating breakfast and telling Ruki about Tom’s scrape with the three-wheeler; she got her driver/caretaker to use some rubbing compound on the red paint and got it off.  I can’t believe it looks good as new.  He was happy with the $2 that Tom gave him.

Tom- I had a really busy day today – picked up our China visas ($135 each!), paid our last month rental on the car ($374), bought a Lonely Planet China book ($35), did a withdrawal at Hatton National Bank, spent an hour online at the Fulbright office and drove back to Ruki’s in the morning.  I picked up Helen for lunch, made some wrong turns, and ended up at Ranjan’s framing store.  We paid him for the two paintings he framed (elephant and lion fish $82) and he provided chicken rolls and iced coffee for lunch.  We then spent another hour on the Fulbright computers and returned to the guesthouse.  We ended the day by taking Ruki out to dinner at the Commons on Flower Road.  I had a club sandwich and fries, Ruki had something called kottu rotti which was pretty good and Helen just had a chicken wrap, which was the most meager of the three. Helen and I shared their specialty – a Mango Milkshake!  This was the first full day that I ventured out in Colombo traffic!