Day 13 started with a relatively slow wakeup and a breakfast combining our own ingredients, something from the kitchen of our guesthouse and some magic (No, not that kind of magic, you deviant!) After wrapping up all our stuff, getting rid of all the lingering ailments and getting our minds ready for the inevitable battle ahead, we finally set of towards the station. All went well until it was time to beard the train, which arrived 20 minutes early and had absolutely no indication which end had the second class carts, thus we happened to be exactly in the wrong end of the 20 cart train when the rush for the few available seats happened, or even the rush for the good spots in the hallways. As a result, we had to split up in couple different carts and hallways and myself and Kaisu ended up in the same hallway with another Finnish lady, a big local family and a random assortment of westerners. At some point we even had to use the good old elbow tactic to gain ourselves some room to stand in. And stand we did, for most of the nearly 3h trip from Galle to Colombo it was so thigh with all the back bags filling the corridors and people swelling around em. At some point I just got tired of standing, sat to read on the top of my backpack and suddenly, an hour had disappeared.

From Colombo to Negombo we ended up getting a taxi to our accommodation – which ended up costing us so much that each of us saved only around 300 rupees (a couple euros or a very, very cheap meal) in comparison to taking a taxi all the way – what a robbery, meso no likey. And if that is not enough, things got even worse when the taxi driver called our guesthouse for directions, it turned out that our reservation had been canceled and transfered to another location by the host, without any notice towards us. So round and round we went, trying to find this new place in vain. And things were worsened by the fact that Christmas day seemed to be a universal party day in Negombo, so all the roads were full of people and it was hard to get anywhere. In the end, it took us well over an hour extra to get out of this mess. The driver demanded us an extra 500 for the hassle and told us to get it back from the hostel keeper… Though, still to this day I am not sure if our driver played us like fools and faked the whole situation to make a bit more dough,

The place itself was a dump(ish), and we had to wait for our room for ages,and the same followed later on with the meals we ordered from the guesthouse. To me it seemed like our host did kinda try, but made just too much hassle to get things done properly – others seemed to sure though that he was doing it on purpose.

Besides all this, we did take a couple strolls down the (not so cool and clean) beach, had some snacks out and did the preparations for splitting up the group – the ones about to leave did their final shopping,and I & Jenny got ourselves enrolled on a PADI Open Water diver course. And soon, too soon, on 27th, it was time to say good bye to our dear comrades and part our way – the three brave knights were off to ride the great aluminium beast to the lands of everfrost, and the remaining two of us had to prepare ourselves to meet the beast from bellow.

This was the end of one chapter, but at the same time the start of another in the epic of the Knights of the Sausage Boat.

As a reminder of our visit to this house of horrors, we left a Knights of the Sausage Boat seal of inferiority to one of the kitchen cupboards of our beloved guesthouse.