Leaving Sri Lanka for Thailand, Laos, Cambodia, Vietnam

The next part of my travels around south east asia began this month..

I stayed in Colombo in March & the beginning of April, recouperating and watching most of the quarter final and semi final matches of the ICC cricket world cup. Colombo's a great place to watch it, cricket is HUGE here and the national team have the same kind of fame as Premier league football players in the UK. For a dunce like me who knows very little about the game, i learnt a lot...I even found out that a guy at my gym who i'd ignored up till now but seeemed to be very popular with the gym staff and the punters alike, was actually Ajantha Mendis, one of the team's spinners...
There are big screens laid out in many public places and most of the Colombo cricket & sports clubs sell tickets to non-members for these matches. I spent many an evening with my cousins watching the second session matches (which conveniently started after people finished work) at these clubs (in particular the CH club/ Gymkhana club) drinking cold Lion lager and eating grilled chicken...this world cup was particularly interesting as Sri Lanka got to the final
The final itself was fantastic. I made it out with all my cousins for this match, one flying in from Singapore just to watch the game and though Sri Lanka lost everyone enjoyed the match...im still convinced Sri Lanka threw the match with India to collect huge bribes from the bookies...sorry Deeps, had to say it :)


I left Sri Lanka on the 9th April and headed to Thailand via Kuala Lumpur, Bali and Singapore.
April is a hot month in asia, temperatures in Colombo were approaching a roasting 40oC!!! and i needed to get some shorts and t-shirts, hence the stops for one day in KL and Bali - both a really good places to do a spot of clothes shopping...

In KL i got the uausl shuttle bus from KL airport to the city for GBP 2. In this particular bus, i spotted an interesting set of rules....





When i was in Indonesia, i had spent an average of £51 a day on accomodation and all other costs excluding plane tickets. The budget i'd set myself for the year was £15 a day on accomodation and £30 a day on everything else (excluding plane tickets & clothes shopping). I worked out the overspend last time was due to booking expensive accomodation upfront (£21 per night for the first week in KL) and a few nights of excess (also in KL...).

I was determined to manage my budget better this time as i was now going to be travelling for two and a half months...