Day 1 - Arrival & Driving lessons

 

 

 

 

All three of us have arrived safely yesterday afternoon to Colombo airport with its comfortable 35°C and 100% air humidity. Real globetrotter such as we are of course have kept full control during the entire trip, starting with very German-like behavior on the plane (stretching out over 4 seats on the half empty plane for a relaxing nap during the flight) and bazar-like behavior upon arrival at exchanging our money.

 

Sri Lankans/ Lankis/ Singhals (????) seem to be quite relaxing type of people with flexible working manners (if the exchange rate on your receipt does not match with the exchange rate on the board, the board can be changed within seconds to leave you with a justified lower rate than expected….).

 

A taxi to the hotel was easily found, and thanks to Livia's mum - obviously the only one who has actually prepared for our trip - we even had the directions of the hotel at hand. There we spent the first afternoon relaxing at the pool, meeting the other teams and mentally preparing for our first driving lesson which was scheduled for the next day.

 

09:00am sharp we were ready to ride the beast. As a positive surprise our rickshaw looks brand new and all three of us seem to be natural born three-wheeler drivers. While some in our team are really good at handling the clutch system and others are better at estimating the required space for turning the beast in narrow streets together we form the perfect match.

 

Our green monster already has gotten covered in UN.GIFT banners and is now a driving statement against human trafficking.

 

Afternoon spent at the pool/ near a toilet (slight curry intolerance starting….)/ on the way to a UN meeting in Colombo for our team members. As per tomorrow we will hit the road "for real", updates will follow!

 

 

 

 

 

Marion, Diana and Livia are three Austrian friends that will participate in the Lanka Challenge 2011, a 12 day journey race covering 1,500 km's in a two-stroke powered tuk-tuk across the beautiful island of Sri Lanka. Their team is called The Sound of Tuk Tuk and they are raising funds for victims of human trafficking.

 

 

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