Our CRAZY 16 hour layover in COLOMBO, Sri Lanka!

Our CRAZY 16 hour layover in COLOMBO, Sri Lanka!

This is what I came here for. It’s amazing. Look at this. Greetings from Columbbo Airport in Sri Lanka. Nate and Patrina here. We’re traveling. We are on a trip to Southeast Asia and we have a longish layover here in Columbbo. We were late getting here so we have a shorter layover than anticipated. This is a quick stop. We just get a taste of Columbbo. What can we do in the few hours we have? We have about 16 hours until we have to be back right here at the airport. So, we’re going to try and cram in as much as we can. This is by no means an exhaustive trip to Columbbo, but we want to do it all in a short amount of time, and we’re going to do it. Clock is ticking. Let’s [Music] go. All [Music] right, we’re in the hotel. Hi, Katrina. Hi. And we need to be out of the hotel cuz we’re running out of time. Oh, by the way, it’s also a national holiday in Sri Lanka today and we didn’t know. That always happens to us. I think we’ll be okay. Look at this explosion. Look at this. [Music] Dang. Look at that tower. Look at that lotus right there. I I’ll just be real honest with you. We don’t know a lot about Columbbo. I think when people go to Sri Lanka, Columbbo is not like top on the list. I think they go see the animals and the forests and the jungles. Yeah, we’re in the city today. But look at this tower. Nate and Katrina, we climb tall towers. I was going to say, if you’ve watched any of our other vlogs, you know that if there’s something to climb, we will climb it. But this has an elevator. Thank god. Look at that. Anyway, it’s really pretty, too. The colors are really It’s over 350 m up there. What does that rank in like tallest things that we’ve climbed that we’ve climbed or in the world? I don’t know. All right, we did some research. The tower we went on in Berlin is taller than this, but this observation deck is actually higher. This tower is taller than the Eiffel Tower, which when you look at it, it totally looks taller. It’s like towering. I love the colors on it. I think that’s like my favorite thing. It’s really pretty. We’ll see it tonight when it’s all lit up. Yeah. All right. It’s 20 bucks. USB to get in and there’s some sort of experience show thing first and we’re going to go do that. I just want to skip it and go straight to the observation, but I guess we’re going to do the Pixel Bloom. We’re doing it. Pixel Bloom. [Music] So, my ears are going to be popping like crazy on this. 48 seconds to get up to the observation deck. That’s pretty crazy. [Music] Look at this view. Wow. [Music] We are way way up here right now. It’s a really great view though. It’s amazing. Indian Ocean out that way. We came like a couple hours later. We could have watched the sunset from up here. Probably a lot. Probably a lot of people come up here. Yeah. But it’s nice to get like a bird’s eye view of the entire city and see just kind of like how packed in it all is down there. All the buildings and everything. A lot of construction things are happening here. You can see the port over there. A lot of business going on. Highly recommend. [Music] All right, that was fun. I feel a little bit pressured cuz we don’t have a lot of time here. I like the water in this in the city and all the green. It’s so green here. It’s so lush. Like even when we were driving in from the airport, which is about an hour, 45 minutes to an hour away from like where we’re staying in Columbbo, everything’s just palm trees and just lush like vegetation everywhere. It’s really beautiful. Crow coming in. Yikes. All right, let’s go down to see the old town, right? All right, let’s get into it. [Music] [Applause] [Music] All right, we just got dropped off here in front of the Dutch Museum, which is quite closed. You didn’t know we live in the Netherlands. We wanted to see the museum, though. Famous landmark building here. Obviously, the Dutch came here during the the spice trade years and uh had a lot of a lot of influence, conquered a lot of stuff. I think we found like the heartbeat of Columbbo. This is where there’s like bustling street markets and things like that on a holiday where a lot of it’s closed. Well, that’s true. Our bad. Okay. [Music] You all right there, Katrina? No, I’m a little shiny, a little sweaty. It’s it’s the humidity is wow. Uh we are in front of the Jummy Ulfar Mosque here. Uh locally known as the Red Mosque because it’s red and white candy stripes. This mosque is quite amazing and it’s massive. Nate is full of facts today because my phone doesn’t work here. So we’re relying on him for all the fun facts and I’m just going to give some color commentary. It looks like it’s from the game Candyland. It does. It was built in 1908 through 1909 and they’ve expanded it over time. It can help 10,000 people at one time. Yeah, cuz it goes like over to the other side of the street. There is a visitors area that you can go in, but again, we’re here a little bit too late and we don’t have the proper Yeah. tire with bags and stuff. We can’t take it. So, next time. So, yeah, we’re just kind of exploring out on the streets and people see that. Yeah, they do. People want to help. Very friendly. All right, onward. [Music] All right. There’s a couple different temples on this street. Katrina was attracting a bit of a crowd. I think we both were. We kind of stand out. Yeah, we stand out like sore thumbs here. And we had a a whole group that wanted hugs and photos and maybe kisses, too. Uh, so it escalated quickly. Getting a little out of control. One selfie turned into 1,700 selfies. It’s funny though. It’s interesting. I got that when I was in Japan. I think it’s the blonde hair. Very friendly, but like it got too many people surrounding us. It’s hot. It’s sweaty. It was like literally these like 18 20-year-old guys like hanging on me, hugging me. And I’m like, it was just too warm. Like I was too too warm and too too much of a group. But if you guys find this on our vlog, if you watch YouTube, shout out to you. What’s up, guys? So anyway, interesting street. Couple different temples here. can’t can’t take photos or video on them and we’re sweaty messes. [Music] So, it’s getting windier as we get closer to the coast down here. We’re on the wrong side for the sunset, though, so we’ll see what we can actually see. All [Music] right, we found out where all the people are that were riding all the buses we’ve been seeing all day long here. Yeah, they’re all down by the coast. They’re having some kind of like get together. Well, it’s like Labor Day, which we were being told from some of the locals is, you know, a celebration of the working man here. And so, you can see there’s rallies going on, probably some political or some like uh union organized type rallies. But there’s been buses everywhere from the airport here. We saw buses parked all over the city. There’s these crazy painted buses. And we found the people that rode the buses. And everybody’s wearing red. That red and like maroon. Yeah, that must be like the symbol of the color. There’s red flags up. There’s a big arcade shopping center thing here in between us and the coast, I think, cuz we couldn’t see the sunset. But best laid plans. This this whole trip has been just very quick because we added this on to our trip to Indonesia. A quick stopover. But I’m enjoying seeing somewhere totally different. Unexpected. Yeah. And now let’s we’re talking about getting food for like hours. I was joking. I’m like, “How did you lose weight on your vacation?” “Oh, I just didn’t eat.” That is so unlike us, too. So, let’s find something. It’s time. It’s time. Yeah. [Music] [Applause] Okay, so we found a restaurant. Um, we saw some really amazing flowers that I’ve never seen before. A nice gentleman told us what they were called. We’re going to have to look it up because I have no idea. They only open at night. They only open at night. Must confirm that. But it is night and he said they’re poisonous. Anyways, we found food. Smells amazing. It’s right over here. I’m going to eat too much and I’m very excited. Let’s go. [Music] [Music] How was your dinner, Katrina? We finally ate. Um, it was okay. The appetizers, I think, were nice. There was a really cool like powdery spicy something that he said it was a Sri Lankan pepper and that that spice was really good on the This low light thing is weird as I know. We got a We’re being lit from below. And then we got a pork curry that wasn’t what I thought it was going to be. So maybe that’s why I was a little disappointed. Was that wasn’t the greatest. But the appetizers were very good. Cool room. Nice people. Yeah, totally. Everyone’s super nice. We’re not done. This layover is not done. We got one more thing to do. One minute and a halfish. We’ll see. All [Music] right. Okay, that ride was insane. There are so many cars and tuk tuks and buses all over the place. We should find out how many people There was like an influx of people coming into Columbbo for this holiday today because tens of thousands. Yeah, there was a lot of people coming into the city today. And the driver of that last Uber said in like 2 hours there’ll be nobody. He wanted to take us to the airport tomorrow morning, too. I I appreciate his his uh capitalistic spirit, but he had the smallest, loudest little tiny car, and we have two big giant suitcases and that car on the freeway for 40 minutes. Oh my god. Anyways, we made it to our final stop of the evening. We are in front of the Gangaraya Temple. Close. Probably pronunciation unclear. It’s a Buddhist temple here in Columbbo. It is beautiful. It is open late. Open late. One of the oldest Buddhist temples in the city and we’re here to check it out. I think someone wants to give us a ride. No, we’re we know we’re good. Thank you. Tuk tuk drivers keep seeing us and stopping to see if we need a ride. Sore thumb. Sore thumb. We get it. You do have to cover your shoulders and your knees when you go in these temples though. So, I have a little shawl. You’re all good. Off we go. See if they’ll let us. Sore thumbs [Music] in. [Music] [Applause] [Music] Yeah. This temple is very famous for all the mix of architectures. There’s stuff from obviously Sri Lankan area, Indian area, Thai. Uh it’s it’s massive and it’s just kind of stunning when you walk through it, all the different things they have going on. I was kind of bummed that we were going to do it at night cuz I kind of wanted to see it during the day, but I actually think that at night it’s all lit up and it just kind of has a like a calmer vibe to it. There’s a very Well, it’s Buddhist temples. I think when I think of them, I think of peacefulness. So, it fits. It checks out. Yeah. This is amazing. I’ve never seen anything quite like it before, to be honest. And there’s wildlife. There’s a gecko over there. And I saw a chipmunk. A tiny little chipmunk. Mhm. I love it here. This is what I came here for. It’s amazing. Look at this. [Music] [Applause] [Music] [Applause] I do cat. He’s so skinny. Oh, you should take him home with those things. We’re going the wrong way. We’re not going home yet. Oh, so bony. That makes me really sad. I would take you home, but we’re on an island. [Music] Uh, welcome to the departure lounge here at the Columbbo airport. We are leaving Sri Lanka. I’m starting with a breakfast of pineapple and a very traditional Sri Lankan food called a kiri bath, which from what I read is a coconut pudding of sorts. Rice cooked in coconut milk. Um, very important dish here in Sri Lanka from what I’ve read. Never had it before. Uh-oh. Mm- That’s not it. Not it. That’s not it. Okay. Try new things, they say. We are leaving Sri Lanka. Thanks for coming along. Anyways, Nate’s gonna enjoy his rice breakfast and we’re gonna wait to get on a plane. We got up at 3:15 this morning. So, all right, guys. Thanks for following along. We will see you in Jakarta. [Music]

One of our favorite travel “tricks” is to find flights that have VERY long connections or layovers. We were on our way from our home in Amsterdam, The Netherlands to Jakarta, Indonesia, and found a flight that stopped overnight in Colombo, the capital city of Sri Lanka, and we knew we needed to do it!

We had never been to Sri Lanka, and did not know a lot about Colombo. Check out this video to see us on a whirlwind tour that includes the amazing Lotus Tower, one of the most beautiful Buddhist temples in the world, and a few other fun surprises!

We definitely know we need to come back and see more of the country, but we are so glad we were able to get a small glimpse of Colombo!

#colombo #srilanka #srilankavlog #americansinsrilanka

✼ Would be cool to see you over here ✼
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✼ ABOUT US ✼
We are Nate and Katrina, two Americans living in Amsterdam, The Netherlands and traveling as much as we can to see what there is to see! Call us expats, immigrants, whatever… just call us already.

We balance work life with travel… as best we can! We would love to visit every country in Europe while we live here, and definitely keep a list of our global “must visit” destinations.

We try to give you a true view of us and how we travel and explore the world. Lots of food, definitely some jokes, and probably some swearing…. Hope you enjoy taking these trips with us!

0:00 Intro at the Colombo airport
1:09 Hotel in Colombo, Sri Lanka
1:38 Sri Lanka Lotus Tower
4:25 Figuring out our next move
5:10 Dutch Museum, Colombo
5:37 The Old Town of Colombo
6:01 Jami Ul-Alfar Mosque
7:01 Creating a scene…
8:02 Heading to the coast
8:16 Labor Day celebrations in Colombo
9:40 Dinner in Ceylon Curry Club, Colombo
11:15 Crazy traffic in Colombo
11:59 Gangaramaya Temple, Colombo
14:27 Nate makes a kitty friend
15:12 Not the ending we originally filmed