Packing was easy, as we had barely unpacked during our time in Tokyo, so having caught the JR for the last time and posted the postcards we were soon arriving at the airport where, apart from getting the wrong terminal, things went smoothly. The highlight of departures was seeing a policeman on a Segway and the metre long dried and pressed squid which I could have bought in duty free...

The flight was a glorious 9 hours of ad lib films, excellent food and lots of space. The turbulence was quite exciting from time to time and every tannoy message for the passengers was repeated by the pilot, chief steward, co-pilot and anybody else who passed the microphone and fancied pausing the films so that we could enjoy the sound of their heavy breathing.

We arrived in Sri Lanka after dark where Bob's passport received a new stamp (hoorah) but on the 'wrong' page (boo) and Gerry, our marvellous host appeared to collect us and delivering us to our very clean guesthouse for the evening. It was warm and very humid but everybody who we met was charming and I fell asleep very excited about the next 10 days.