I decided to go back to Sri Lanka… 🇱🇰
By: Kavindu Narathota
Tags: Sri Lanka, Coronavirus, Covid 19, Experience, Travel

When I landed in Sri Lanka at 8:30 AM, I made sure that I rushed to all the queues and get all the procedures done as soon as possible. I was able to collect my luggage and went to the customs checking and come out of the airport gate at 9:15 AM. I didn't even stop at the duty-free shops. As soon as I stepped out, all I saw was mayhem. A handful of Army and Military police officers trying their best and failing to control the crowd coming out of the Airport.

As soon as I came out of the gate, I was given a token with my flight number and I was advised to proceed in a queue. Along with a few familiar faces, I remember seeing in the aircraft, I proceeded accordingly. As I mentioned, ‘Sri Lankans being Sri Lankans’, no one was patient, and soon that 1 queue became 5 queues merging into one.

At the end of that queue, there was a table managed by a few army officers and they asked the following questions from all the passengers.

Did you get both doses of vaccine?

Are you going to a paid or a government maintained quarantined center

Based on your answers, they will collect your passport and the first token, enter your records into an excel sheet and give you another token along with the passport, and ask you to sit until they get back to us. The second token was with a number and you can see a board with a hotel name on it near the table.

Passenger handling at the BIA by Sri Lankan Army — April 2021

What these officers are doing is that, if you are going to a paid quarantining center, they will pick one from the available pile and put it on aboard. Collect the number of vacancies and ship them to that hotel.

When I was waiting for my flight in Dubai, from an official contact, I got to know that the Army commander had decided to do the hotel assignment based on the flight and because it’s easier to keep track of the passengers. As a passenger, this is very concerning for me because, if I’m paying the full price and I have some special requests, what if the place I’ve been sent to doesn't have the capability to attend to those requests. Yes, I understand that this is not a vacation, but if someone is not getting the service they are paying for, that is a violation of their rights. But luckily, the flight I was on from Dubai to Colombo was assigned a good hotel in Tangalle which had all my requirements. But unfortunately, when I got to the counter, the officer in charge said that the hotel assigned is not available yet and I will be redirected to another 4-star hotel in Mirissa. I said as long as they have what I requested, I don’t mind and the officers assured me that the place is a 4-star resort. Because I needed to support the proceedings and thought these officers are not misleading the passengers, I agreed to go to that place.

After spending 2 hours in the queue and getting a hotel (4 stars as the army officers claimed) to be quarantined, we were advised to be seated again until the buses are there to pick us up. We had to wait more than an hour to finally get the word to get onto the bus. I put my luggage on the bus and got in and sat down. I must mention, no one was caring about social distancing. The bus was packed. After waiting another 30–35 minutes on the bus, another army officer got onto the bus and said the bus was having some trouble and asked everyone to get onto another bus and put all the luggage into a container truck which will follow that bus to the quarantining center. PERFECT!

So the journey was from BIA to Mirissa. 176 km and 2 hr 31 min if you maintain the average speed. If you are driving a heavy vehicle, of course, it could take somewhere up to 3 hours and it’s completely understandable.

But the journey I had to take took almost 6 hours!!! Surprised? Let me explain. So the convoy had 4 vehicles! One escorting vehicle, two passenger busses, and a container truck! To be honest, it felt a bit like a VIP when we cruised through traffic lights until we enter the highway from the Katunayaka entrance. As soon as we enter, instead of keeping the recommended speed limit of 100km/h, the convey traveled somewhere around 50–60km/h. I was super tired to noticed that so I kinda dozed off a bit. But when I woke up, the bus was parked at the side of the road and the driver was outside and smoking a cigarette leisurely. A few minutes later he got on to the bus and telling a passenger that the other bus driver was going all over the road because he almost fell asleep at the steering wheel and that’s why they stopped for a bit.

After few minutes we started moving forward slowly and again after 30 minutes we stopped. This time most of the passengers got pissed when the driver got out from the bus and, sat down on the roadside, and started smoking another cigarette accompanied by a few army officers (no they didn’t smoke). Some of the elderly passengers started making a scene and started scolding everyone. Then a soldier got on to the bus to explain the situation. From his words (translated).

Sir, we are stopping here because the driver in front of us is falling a sleep at the steering wheel and we gave him a few minutes to rest his eye. Otherwise he could have met with an accident with all the passengers on board. What do you prefer, meeting with an accident of going to the quantine hotel a bit late? These are not army boys! If they are, then we will get you where you want to go on time. I myself haven’t selpt in 4 days and serving people like you. These are civilian drivers. As we take care of you, we have to take care of these guys also. Kindly try to understand!

This makes complete sense to me! In fact, I kinda encourage this, even I’ve been on flights for 30+ hours and haven’t had anything to eat since I landed in Sri Lanka for more than 6 hours. But the concern was if the drivers are tired, why were they assigned to drive passengers in the first place? Why they couldn’t find another driver or create some kind of a shift-based system to handle this more effectively? Who knows!

After all these, I finally got to the place where I was supposed to be quarantined for 7 days. (I’ll write about the whole quarantine experience in another article). The most disappointing factor about the hotel was that when I was assigned a hotel I specifically mentioned that I will be needing a quiet place with a good internet connection to work remotely with my Canadian team. The officer in charge guaranteed that and said since this is a 4 star rated hotel and I don’t have to worry about it. First and foremost, don’t use google review ratings as hotel ratings. Even though they claimed it was a 4-star resort, I kinda knew something was fishy, but after looking at google photos, I thought it was kinda nice. (FYI: the Aliya resort and spa in Sigiriya; that luxurious hotel is also a 4-star hotel. It’s an actual 4-star rated hotel). This is where I blame misusing professionally shot photos on their google page. The photos I saw online and the ones I’m experiencing now are like the land and sky!

Of course, this place would be a decent quarantine center for someone who doesn't want to spend a ton (because it was a 9000LKR-full board for a single occupant and 10000LKR for double sharing). Actually, for people who are coming from middle eastern countries and want to save their hard earn money, this is an ideal place. The food is decent, the staff is very helpful and the room is livable.

But for someone with a few special requests and doesn’t care about where the location is as long as those basic requests are met, this is not the place. I mean, I personally requested a place with a reliable WiFi connection and a quiet place to get my work done, from the get-go because I want to spend my hard earn money at a place where I can get the work done without any problems. It’s simple as that. If you think that’s a selfish reason, let me give a selfless reason. Why would someone willing and can afford to stay at a more expensive place is cramped at this place where that place can be allocated to someone who really wants to save some money for their families?

By the time I write this article, it’s only been 40 hours since I put my feet in Sri Lanka and barely 24 hours since I came to this hotel. I was lucky enough to reach out to a few of my contacts in the Sri Lankan Army and explain the situation and request a change of places to spend the rest of my quarantining days. But why didn’t they take my request seriously in the first place way before I put my foot on the airplane and even at the airport? It was neither a huge request nor have the resources to do so. The officers who handled this were ignorant, misleading and now see where everyone lead to because of that.