After a decent flight with a bit of a diversion to avoid Iran airspace, we landed at about 5am in Colombo. It took literally about 10 mins to get through passport control, collect our bags and we were met by our driver Chandanna who greeted us with shell necklaces and a smile. He’s got us for 10 days at least. He may lose that smile by then. Day 1 is a rest day so we are in a hotel not far from the airport but out of town. The Wallawa is set in several acres of tropical gardens that are over 200 years old with only a dozen or so rooms so it’s very quiet. We slept for a couple of hours then had breakfast (curry for Tim of course) and hung out by the pool until dinner – more curry and very good it was too. The transition of going from 1 degree in temperature when we left home to 35 here is staggering but not unwelcome although it helps when you have air con and a pool. Tim is very excited about being able to collect new birds for his collection. He got 15 today and described each one in detail to me. It’s going to be a long trip… As well as the excitement of the bird life we had a huge lizard/small dinosaur parading around the pool. It was eating a mouse at one point. Great for rodent management but I think I’d rather have a cat. For the life of me I can’t work out how to upload the lizard video – it will appear at some random point I’m sure. Tomorrow we’re off to safari country.