Well its hot and humid here in Colombo and I have to say its a big relief to be here. The last few days before I left were made a misery by the Indian High Commission and their inability to issue a visa quickly, nevertheless I am here now and all is forgotten in a haze of humidity and jet lag.

Back to Thursday and the agent who was collecting the passport advised me at 2 .00pm that he was not confident that the Indian HC would release my passport with the visa in time for me to make my flight on Saturday am. The Indian HC had received my passport fully three weeks before and despite a question requiring more details on my proposed Nagaland trip, had remained quiet and were refusing to answer questions. Whilst Nagaland is a sensitive area, it would have been unusual to refuse me permission to enter and my agent starting to believe that they had lost the passport.

Luckily a hurried conversation with our passport issuing office in Newport advised me that if the IHC had lost the passport only an admission in writing by the IHC would allow the Brits to issue a new one. When we asked for this in writing, the passport appeared somewhat miraculously ten hours later, 18 hours before my departure and I quickly traveled to London to collect it and returned to Bristol for my sister's birthday party before leaving early the next morning.

Consequently sitting here in the humidity watching Andy Murray seems somewhat surreal. My trip here was uneventful with Emirates and a rather quick stop over in Dubai. I landed here at 8.00am this morning having been entertaining by Raj in the seat next to me all night as he regaled me with stories of his homeland whilst I tried to impress upon him my need for some shut eye.

After breakfast and a long ride to Su's home, I fell asleep only to wake in the late afternoon and go for a beachfront walk to watch all the locals engaging in their sunday promenades,energetic kiting plus some rather timid fully clothed frolicking in the surf. After a street side dinner of Sri Lanka Curry in a curry house where the staff seemed more interested in me than anything else, I have retired to a bar for the tennis. As I finished my evening meal the waiter smiled and said "you had better eat all your curry sir, you would not want to loose weight...eh.!" I have a feeling I will easily adapt to Sri Lanka...