When my boss told me that I have to go to Colombo for seven days I was very happy and excited as well as apprehensive. Although I have been to almost every corner of the world even to places like cyprus, Zaire, chile, mexico but never to Sri Lanka. So lets start the Sri Lankan experiance. My office travel agent warned me that del - colombo flight that it was completely booked so be early at the airport. There I was at the IGI airport at 7:30PM for 10:30PM flight. There were two check in counters for lesser mortals (economy) and two counters for bussiness class which were having a deserted look.
There was utter chaos at economy check in counter, no ques no decorum only jungle raj. For One hour I was standing at the same place. I requested one airline staff to convert atleast one business class counter to economy one. He gave me a strange look and asked me to wait. After a minute he returned with some senior official who asked me how many people and how much luggage, when I told him I am travelling alone with just a bag to be checked in he took me to the counter got me checked in (It can happen only in India). Flight was on time take off smooth now comes the food part as flight was 100% booked flight staff was bit nervous clearly they are not used to 100% booked flight.
At last when my turn came a harried but lovely sri lankan dame asked me what would I like to have chicken, lamb or vegitarian. On asking for chicken she informed me all lamb and chicken food packets are gone they only have veggie affair, then why bother asking do I have choice? After a nice veggie meal yes it was good. I tried on flight entertainment system my head phones wont work. When I asked for replacement they were promptly changed and I was informed that headphone jack of my seat is not working, then what is the fun of changing the headphone?
Lastly I asked for eye band so that I can catch some sleep. no body came back. It was all going wrong. Finally we reached Colombo again on time. On the way back when there was only 50% flight bookings every thing was in place. Got food of my choice, entertainement system worked even got my eye band. Best part was flight took off on time reached delhi on time. I was surprised with punctuality and over all a nice experiance atleast on the way back. Taking my first part of journey as one off incidence, I found srilankan a good experiance better than malaysian definately.