"We Don't Fly to Sri Lanka Anymore"

Tuesday morning I decided to pass on another Royal Palace and Silver Pagoda as I wanted to sleep-in and take it easy until my 11am flight. When I went to get breakfast I walked into a stinky, dark restaurant where the food was not a pleasant sight. I ended up passing on the runny eggs, pork strips (not deserving of being called bacon or ham), but did eat the nice begat. My flight to Hong Kong was nice as I had 3 seats and slept about half of it.
At the airport I sent some emails and tried to call home but it was about 2am back in AZ so I didn’t catch anyone. After a couple hours I went to check-in for my flight and was told by the agent, “We don’t fly to Colombo anymore.” I knew CathayPacific had been evaluating their service to Colombo after the Tamil rebels attacked the Sri Lankan air force base next door to the international airport. I guess they had decided to stop their flights and had conveniently forgotten to inform me. Thankfully, they had made arrangements with Sri Lanka Airlines to move their people over to Sri Lankan flights from Bangkok to Colombo. My flight from Hong Kong to Bangkok was in another four hours so I had a nice chance to sit at the airport in Hong Kong, eat good food, and enjoy the free internet. It also gave me a chance to call home and successfully connect with my dad for once (he’s hard to get a hold of). The Hong Kong Airport has kind of become a home away from home for me on this trip. I have been through there maybe a dozen times, spent a night on the floor, eaten a handful of meals, and enjoyed the nice amenities.
My one worry was how to get news of my change in arrival to David in Sri Lanka. I sent an email ASAP and he replied just before I left to catch my flight so that was wonderful. The flight was less than ½ full and I got four seats to stretch out across in the back. We arrived in Bangkok before midnight and I had over three hours to kill before the next flight took off. I wandered around the airport looking for a power plug and seeing if I could find any cheap internet service. Somehow I lucked into both. When I went to use the restroom I passed a storage room that was open and had an available power plug. Not only that, it was next door to the CathayPacific 1st/Business class lounge which had an unprotected wireless internet hookup. So I ended up spending the next two hours sending emails, reading news, and calling home while sitting in a storage room in the airport in Bangkok. It was a little strange, but whatever works I guess. The flight to Colombo was packed and I couldn’t sleep at all even though it was from 3am to 6am. When I arrived in Sri Lanka I was dead tired, but very happy to see David at the airport.