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I couldn't figure out how to get Blog to upload from Sri Lanka till today. So, the entry I made soon after I got to Sri Lanka finally went online. In fact, in trying to upload that entry, I had managed to completely wipe out the main page for my Tripod site but couldn't even look into that since I had been away from Colombo (the capital of Sri Lanka and where I normally live when here ...) visiting relatives and doing the normal rounds that are to be expected after being away from Sri Lanka for so long :p I finally got back and am now able to try to chronicle all the stuff that's been happening at my end ...

First on my list of course is the initiation of the assault on Afghanistan - which as far as I can tell has had not much effect on the Taliban or Bin Laden but has certainly resulted in the deaths of at least four US citizens (who were incidentally in an identified US location - the current story is that that was the result of a "rogue" missile ... wonder how many of those are going around these days what with the other rogue missile which took down a passenger air craft a week or two ago ...) and perhaps more innocent civilians than anybody remotely connected to the Taliban - but who really cares about the deaths of some unknown people in a country far away, right? Of course, the US stance now is that it might take months or even years instead of the initial three days that they claimed was necessary to take down Bin Laden and the Taliban. I just hope that this won't turn into another Vietnam but I do have this dreadful suspicion that that's exactly where the US is headed ...

OK, I'm in Sri Lanka :-) In fact, I've been here for slightly over twelve hours already ... and it's kind of strange and kind of like coming home. But let's begin at the beginning - the trip was much less eventful than I'd feared it might turn out to be :p Nobody wanted to throw me off the plane and they didn't even want to search my baggage though I had lots of wires, electronic equipment etc. If I'd known that I'd have brought more electronics than I did with me :p The bad part was that they didn't have any power outlets on any of the aircraft's that I traveled in (at least not the economy/coach section <g>) and so I couldn't watch DVD's all the way as I'd planned :-( I did watch half of "Finding Forrester" till I had about an hour's battery life left but then decided to conserve the battery in case I needed to refer to my notebook for anything.

While the flying time itself was only about eighteen to twenty hours split over three different flights, I think I spent about ten more hours waiting for connecting flights, sitting on the tarmac while repairs were made to the plane etc. I tell you that I felt as if I'd been totally put through the wringer by the time I got out :p And actually the whole immigration and customs deal was kinda anti-climactic since they didn't bug me too much at all - and I'd thought they might think I was trying to smuggle something in because I was returning to Sri Lanka after four years with just carry-on luggage :p

Didn't do much during the evening as I was feeling the effects of jet lag. Didn't go to bed either since I needed to stay up till night-time over here so that my body would adjust to the night-day cycle over here. There are power-cuts in effect in Sri Lanka at the moment - three hours a day! Jeeze! That really hits the point home that I"m in Sri Lanka :p If there were power cuts like that in the US, somebody would be in big trouble ... and I don't mean the consumers :p But this is part and parcel of life in Sri Lanka - just like the army encampments and dugouts with guns sticking out around the airport because it had been attacked a few months back by terrorists. Ah well, terror is a day-to-day occurrence in some parts of the world - I guess you just get used to it after a while ...