Colombo Airport

New terminal building is a vast improvement on the old once. Good facilities air bridges and a reasonable number of shops. Immigration can be slow (as with many things in Sri Lanka). Leave plenty of time to get through security and immigration when leaving Colombo. There is only one ATM (cash machine) at the airport. On the day of my arrival it was out of order. So take some cash or travellers cheques. There are plenty of banks just outside the arrivals hall where you can change to Sri Lankan rupees. If you need a local SIM there is a Dialog shop just after the banks (near the hotel stands on the left). A local SIM costs Rs 1600 with Rs 1000 credit). Activation takes 2-3 hours.

What a dreadful experience! Heathrow/Colombo/Bangkok and return. The outbound wasn't too bad but that was probably due to the arrival time of our flight at Colombo the immigration process took about 40 minutes but the return was a nightmare. Our flight arrived at about 1000pm and seemed to coincide with the arrival of several other flights - six or seven hundred passengers at immigration and about twelve desks but only four were being used that's about 150 passengers per desk after queing for over an hour the immigration official serving the queue that we were waiting in decided that he had had enough and cleared off - we were then told to join the back of one of other three queues. Another hour and a half wait and it was our turn my wife got processed but when it came to my turn the official decided that he was thirsty and was going for a drink. I tried telling the official that we were together but that fell on deaf ears and again we were told to join the back of one of the two remaining queues. Pandemonium broke loose airport security then stepped in and began screaming at passengers - almost immediately two more desks were opened but that just made matters worse. Never again. The security people were treating the passengers as though we were animals I appreciate that there are big security issues in Sri Lanka but our experience was totally unacceptable.

The airport is clean and modern duty free shops are good and the staff polite and helpful. Check-in takes a lot of time due to the many security checks.