A few words about the journey itself.

This journey became, due to Air Lanka, something of a small disaster. Firstly the flight, that was meant to take me out of Copenhagen, never turned up. So -- after waiting hours upon hours -- I was put on a Singapore Airlines 747 which brought me to Colombo. From there I went on to Bangkok in a Thai International 747. Here I was already booked on an Alitalia departure to HongKong, but it had no seat for me (Well! On paper it had, but the captain had invited his family along) and nobody cared! The Air Lanka Office was closed and a sleepy clerk told me to try some other airline. During the night I tried in vain to arrange for a seat, but had to give up and check into Airport Hotel for a comfortable and very expensive few hours of rest.
       The last step of my way out I came to ride a Lufthansa Boeing 747 having an unusually rough touch down in HongKong. The reason was a lurking typhoon. I arrived 28 hours after schedule, only to find out, that my luggage was missing.
       The following couple of days was wasted trying to recover my luggage. This turned out an exhausting task, because every time I phoned the airport I was told, that my baggage had long since arrived and stood waiting for me. Happily I then took a taxi to the airport only to find out, that no luggage at all was waiting for me. This happened at least three times, making me rather upset. The last attempt, however, yielded a promise, that by now it was only a matter of a couple of hours before I had my gear.
       Well! It took half a day. Most of the time waiting I spent walking the nearby area -- a rather gloomy place home to a lot of illegal businesses.
       Even the handing over of my rucksack turned out a problem, because it had by that time been deemed 'suspicious'. First I had to describe it several times to various officials. Then I had to identify it among a lot of other luggage and last I had to endure a radical search of my bag, meaning I had to unpack it and pack it again. The officials did not disclose, what they were looking for -- probably nothing!

By then all those problems had drained my supply of hard cash, time and patience. So instead I opted for a redesigned and much shorter stay and cancelled a planned visit to the Eastern Sri Lanka too.
       So, the pictures presented here, are the result of a very few days of intense touring.

Boarding Air Lanka The journey back to Copenhagen presented some strange experiences too. For a change I boarded an Air Lanka Lockheed 1011 in HongKong and joined it all the way to Colombo, where I, after waiting another couple of hours in a place like a primitive cinema without a screen and a very, very poor sound system, boarded another Air Lanka Lockheed 1011 bound for Copenhagen. The first leg went, apart from the delay, almost according to schedule. In Amsterdam most of the passengers departed and an almost empty carrier proceeded to Copenhagen. Not long after take-off, however, the plane developed some trouble with its portside engine and, instead of turning around, the captain decided to limp on. This meant flying low altitude across Denmark offering a unique view of the country.
       Kastrup Airport was prepared for the disabled plane. An amazing number of fire-engines stood ready along the runway and chased the plane after touch down. Coming to a stand- still, the plane was looked over by some uniformed men before it was allowed to enter the Airport itself.
       Debarking went relatively smoothly, but in the tull I once more had to endure being seen as a suspicious person and my luggage was poked about again. The customs officer did not find anything, so he decided, that all the illegal stuffs were hidden in my only camera, a Rolleiflex SL 35E. Consequently he asked, if he could look in it. Since it is an SLR-camera, I thought he wanted to peer through the viewfinder, but NO! That bullock opened the camera! Thus all of my pictures taken during approach and landing were destroyed!

By the way: This visit to HongKong became my first in 20 years.

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