Ah!   I remember that day so very well.  We started our conducted tour quite happily and nicely and our band  of merry makers or group of about 15 people.  The tour was conducted by the Holiday Plan in . Colombo.

My narration should start from the very begining although I have narrated and recorded only part of it as it is too long a story.

I remember my friend and I were asked to be at the Bandaranayake  Airport 3 hours ahead of flight time, and we obeyed our orders from our tour guide to the dot.  We were there quite early I think and  the two of us were the first, later on little by little the others came on after we did.  Our tour guide although wanted us to be quite early,  was missing  himself and since this was my very first trip going along with a freind I began to panic,  I think from then onwards,  I thought he would not come, but he did come cool as a cucumber and pretty as you please right on closer to the flight time!! just as the group was getting butterflies in their stomaches.!

Although we were all ready to fly to singapore the flight was delayed for over 3 hours and we actually departed at the ungodly hour of 3.00 a.m. in the morning from the capital city of colombo.  by now I was very sleepy as it was long past the scheduled time....and by the time we got to Singapore it was close upon 8.00 a.m. in the morning and our Tour guide had failed to inform the drivers of the dealy in the flight and they  were quite livid with our tour guide and almost went off without us!!!  I think our tour guide has been doing this for quite some time in previous trips also, so after much talking between our tour guide and the van drivers we started on our tour mind you without brushing our teeth or washing our faces !!! straight away on a city tour of Singapore. and the other sights in the evening and night stopping by only for lunch minus our breakfast !!! which we had to forego.

We were taken to our respective hotels in Singapore and we were free to loaf about in the evening or do shopping by ourselves,  needless to say my friend and I along with our other room mate got lost and could not find our hotel back in the night, I think we walked aimlessly the whole night 12.00 p.m.  trying to locate our hotel, mind you it was very close by... but we failed in finding it.  After much asking and talking to people on the road someone did direct us at last to the hotel.  the men were in one hotel and the women were in one hotel, so in the morning we had to go for breakfast where the mens hotel was located, where again, my fellow room mates got up late while the rest of the group had left us to find our way to the mens hotel for breakfast , we got lost again, and very nearly missed our breakfast and got blasting from our tour guide.

To cut a long story short when we crossed the border from Singapore to Malaysia in a luxury bus it was indeed quite nice and happy while my fellow tour group friends preferred to sleep I kept an eye on the bus...and the beautiful scenery.  it was while we were in Malaysia and on our way to Malakka that all hell broke lose again, when the tour guide forgot on the day of our departure back to singapore that it was a festival holiday in Malakka and that there was no mode of transport at all... he had completely forgotten that it was a holiday.  We had to sit at the receiption and wait well over 3 hours or so until the Manager of the hotel tried his level best to contact some people with vehicles to take us to town, and from there the nightmare for me began again, as I had to carry two heavy bags, from van to bus, from bus to immigration etc.,  there was no help coming from anyone it was  each his own, survive or die!!!  I did feel like dying when we came to an escalator as my friend had forgotten me completely and crossed to the other side along with the rest of the group while I was left to my own deviceswhile trying to precariously  balance  two heavy bags and trying to climb up the escalator which was my worst nightmare.  All eyes were on me and I felt so ashamed of myself, angry and frustrated, tired sleepy and hungry.  I really did not care if I missed the flight( I was thinking to myself,) somewhere down the line, I saw  the tour guide and my friend appear suddenly, the tour guide and my friend had missed me in the group,  and had retranced their steps back to me where I was seated on the floor looing about helplessly and each took a bag from me while the tour guide barked some orders at me.  Everyone was now filling in the immigration forms, and I filled my all wrong as I was angry and hurt that no one had helped me out.  I had to  refill the form again, while the tour guide kept yelling at me to hurry up that there was only 3 minutes left for the flight.  We ran and ran to the flight section, and we knew it was useless running anymore,  when suddenly one good gentleman from our group had a brain wave and somehow managed to talk to some flight officer in the flight section and managed to delay the flight for 1/2 an hour, if not we would have definitely missed our flight, and God knows what or how or where we would have been on that day........

There were no mishaps however on the cruise ships that we travelled on, it was smooth sailing there.

However I must mention coming back to Sri Lanka I got fever, and was unable to tour with my group for part of the Thai tour, and I missed some sights there as I languished in the hotel room by myself.  The trip was good but there was a lot of mishaps with no proper coordination and communication on the part of the tour guide.