Travel Day 1109 – Bangkok to Colombo, SRI LANKA
After arriving back in Bangkok yesterday evening, today I could really only do some errands, pack my backpack and get ready for Colombo and Sri Lanka…
Direct Sri Lanka Flight from Bangkok
Actually since I had arrived in Bangkok with my huge backpack including my Tabla and since I knew that I would be moving around a lot in Sri Lanka, one of the errands I did was buying a fake brand-name backpack. This seemed to be the best solution because the thought of moving around in the heat of Sri Lanka with a lightly packed 50 liter backpack appealed to me much rather and snailing from one place to the other with the heavy 90 liter monster. So the decision was clear and the Tabla had to officially stay behind…
Being able to move around freely also allowed me to save a lot of money since I wasn’t totally dependent on any means of transportation any more and so the first challenge for myself was to try and recover some of the money spent on the new backpack while getting from Bangkok to Colombo on the cheap. This meant instead of spending 350 to 450 baht on a taxi ride to Suvarnabhumi Airport, I rather decided to go by boat and Airport Rail Link train…
Airport Rail Link in Bangkok, Thailand
It really only took me a short 10 minute walk with my light backpack to the boat jetty at Mahakan Fort plus a cheap 10 baht ride down the canal towards Siam Square. From there it was possible to either walk to the Airport Rail Link train or spend another 16 baht on the one-station ride. The Bangkok Airport Rail Link train itself came with another 45 baht price tag and even if I ended up taking the city line instead of the express version, it got me to the airport rather quickly and cheaply. But even more money I finally saved on the trip from the airport in Colombo…
The biggest problem for me was that the airport in Colombo was not actually situated inside the city. Bandaranaike Airport was built further north of Colombo about 1 ½ hours drive with a taxi out of town. There was supposed to be a local bus option to get into Colombo, but my guide book stated that the buses would terminate their service at 9pm. Luckily this information turned out to incorrect and when I arrived at 9.30pm at the so called Colombo airport, I was more than determined to make the trip into town rather on a cheap budget than in one of the really expensive taxis…
Local Bus at Night, Colombo, Sri Lanka
Unfortunately it was dark already when I left on foot the compound of the airport while walking along a seemingly endless fence. I was not only fighting off he somewhat cunning rickshaw drivers but also trying to figure out where exactly this bus stop was supposed to be that the airport information had talked about in broken English. I did not find it, but luckily a local street vendor, who came by with his cart and a candle, took me by the hand and help me hail the correct bus that not only went to the bus station, but actually all the way into Colombo itself…
The ride had cost me 200 rupees and after being lost and confused again at the Colombo bus station, I found another nice local person who took me by the hand and walked me over to the railway station where I could catch a bus down south to an area called Colombo 3 where my pre-arranged hostel was located. It was all good and I even ended up finding a third local person helping me to get off at the right intersection to find my hostel. He actually insisted on paying my bus fair, leaving me with an extremely good impression of the local people in Sri Lanka and especially of Colombo. In my first night in Sri Lanka three people had done everything to help me find my way around and I had saved a lot of money on the trip between Bangkok and Colombo…
The taxi to Suvarnabhumi Airport could have cost up to 450 baht (14.5 USD) and the taxi from Bandaranaike Airport to Colombo could have cost between 2800 and 3600 rupees (27.5 USD), while I paid as little as 55 baht (1.7 USD) and 200 rupees (1.5 USD). So instead of spending 41.5 USD I only spent 3.2 USD. As an added bonus I had an exciting evening, I met many friendly local people and I even recovered more money than my new backpack had actually cost. So it was definitely an interesting, yet quite cheap Active Travel Day and I really couldn’t wait to explore Colombo tomorrow during daylight hours…
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