Lanka Challenge – the beginning

Jon and I arrived into Sri Lanka’s Batunayake Airport on the outskirts of Colombo late on 5th Sept. Batunayake Airport is mental. There is no kind of queuing system through immigration at all; with Sri Lankans jumping from one queue to another to expedite their exit and desks just closing with a queue of 30 in front of them.

On the plane, the Sri Lankans were similarly fidgety and impatient. None wanted the seats they had been allocated and some refused to sit down. When the safety briefing began one guy started punching the TV because they had all been turned off. Then, as we began rolling down the runway, one guy started making a phone call on his mobile. The second we landed, they all stood up to grab their 3 bottles of duty free whiskey – all of them – despite the air hostesses pleas to sit down. Hmmm – impatient, fidgety. Not obeying instructions. Sounds like a Sri Lankan we all know and love.

Outside of the airport however, the true character of the Sri Lankan people was revealed. Sri Lankans are such friendly well mannered people. In the short time we’ve been here, so many have walked up to ask us to ask our names and ‘where is our country’. They have this infectious smile when you catch their eye and they are all so willing to help with directions or with the Tuk-Tuk. No begging or trying to blag you into buying them a new house unlike Mumbai.

When we arrived at the Dolphin Hotel in Negombo, the first thing we had to do was learn to drive the Tuk Tuk for the following morning’s Lanka Challenge. This was easier said than done as by the time we’d arrived it was dark – and driving a Tuk Tuk with a 5 watt dynamo-driven headlight on bumpy roads with no street lights is even more challanging than it sounds. Jonny had a brief and fairly terrifying drive before we decided it was best left until the morning, so we set our alarms for 6am and headed to bed.

At first light, we were treated to South Asia’s monsoon in all its glory. Within about 5 minutes, the floor had a puddle of 3-4cm of water – and it didn’t stop there. Everything got a mega soaking. Our training lasted around 1 hour, before breakfast and the start of the race.

We set off to press photographers snapping and filming the start of our crazy journey and little tuk-tuk horns beeping away. One of the 24 teams taking part in the race is called ‘Daily Telegraph’ as we have the Telegraph’s travel writer with us. We made our way slowly from Negombo through various small villages toward Dambadeniya, Kurenegela and on to our resting place near Siguriya.

Along the way, we had several near misses with buses and big 4x4s overtaking us, and broke down a few times – once because our spark plug fell out of the back of the engine and once because we ran out of fuel. Each time, the Sri Lankan people were so friendly – waving and smiling at our pimped out Rickshaws and coming to our aid when they realised we had a problem. Jon and I bought a blow-up snoopy dog from a lady at the side of the road and had to stop for directions a lot which again the Sri Lankans were always happy to give.

We finally arrived at our hotel, the Kassapa Lions rock – a beautiful hotel consisting of small villas and a big pool in the middle of the Sri Lankan country, near Siguriya. We finished the first day in about 13th place, which considering the mishaps, breakdowns and stops to buy snoopy dogs, we weren’t too unhappy with.

Here is the video of the start of the race: