Two friends, two countries, one day.

Today was fairly low key. We met up with Uma later in the morning to go to the nearby Sobha City Mall. It is a very modern complex with many upscale shops. We were basically just mall walkers, chatting as we slowly walked around. Eventually we went outside the mall to sit overlooking a manmade lake with many high-rise apartment buildings towering above it. It was very interesting learning about each other's culture. It was fascinating to hear about the dating culture (or lack thereof) in India. It is like a twilight zone where people use Tinder to find someone to marry.

Eventually we had to leave, however because we had an afternoon flight and the airport was about an hour and a half drive. We said our goodbyes and had our final experience with Indian traffic. The Cochin Airport is only slightly more efficient than Delhi. A man with a cart full of luggage tried to cut us off in line, but the guard stopped the man and allowed us to maintain our place. There was still excessive redundancy, though. After the guard at the entrance, I had my boarding pass looked at five different times, and stamped three times by three different people with the same stamp. Passing through customs was very similar to waiting at the check-in counter for American Airlines. There's a lot of activity behind the desk and a lot of typing, but what actually occurs is a mystery. The level of security is probably more heightened than in America because everyone gets patted down and wanded after passing through the metal detector, so all these steps may be arguably better, but it just seems there are an unnecessary number of hoops to jump through.

It was a short flight from Cochin to Colombo in Sri Lanka. Going through customs and immigration here was significantly easier and streamlined. It was a welcome change. Just outside the baggage claim, my friend Isuru, a former student from my flight instructing days was waiting along with another flying club student, Dinindu. They were kind enough to come pick us up and take us from the airport into town. We drove down the new highway, so it was a relatively short trip until we hit the traffic of the city. It's interesting to be in yet another country. While tuk tuks are still zipping around on the roads, there are not very many other similarities between the two countries that are separated by just a short flight.

Colombo is a city undergoing transformation. There is a lot of development going on with new luxury hotels popping up everywhere. We checked in to the Cinnamon Red Hotel and then met up to do dinner at a place called the Cricket Club. It had a menu that covered all the bases from fish to pasta to chicken sandwiches to mexican wraps. I went with fish & chips. Nicole, being the Italian that she is, went for the pasta. Needless to say, it was a very different meal from yesterday. We made it an early night in an attempt to catch up on much needed sleep. We're on the move again tomorrow.