Oh! gosh not again.......

Air Force a dream come true. The guys at the Navy had been teasing us, specially Anuki, like hell. Anuki has been waiting for this chance enthusiastically for the last three days.

When Rear Admiral, commander Eastern Naval Command, Samarasinghe introduced us to the officer who came to pick us up, he did not forget to say "Look after our two ladies." Which almost filled our eyes with tears for we remembered all too well how good the Navy looked after us.

A truck was waiting to pick us up when we finally made it to China Bay. And Anuki went 'Oh gosh not again!' Anuki's short legs (no offense) was never able to reach the high steps of the truck.

At least three people always had to be at the ready to catch anything that slipped off her butter fingers - pens, note books, sunglasses, camera - this she dropped roughly three times, it's a wonder it's still working. She would put one leg inside the truck pant for a few minutes and take another few minutes to get the other leg in.

The whole process was extremely tedious for every one involved. Anyway this time the poor Air Force officer had to get in the back because Anuki simply refused to repeat the same ordeal and decided to get in the front.

The Air Force base was much different from the, the one that we pictured. We had the opportunity of meeting the Chief Base Commander and he revealed the history of the China Bay which had a fascinating story behind it.

After gathering the information, time came for site seeing. This time when we walked out a double cab was waiting for us with a smart officer at the wheel, of course accompanied by our first Air force liaison officer as well.

So this time with two men in uniform (different uniforms) two of us went site seeing. Well, there was one thing we madly fell for - the beauty of nature in Trincomalee.

Samadhi almost fell off the seat while trying to capture the dancing peacocks on camera, with the window shutter up, at that!

At first the two officers were fairly quiet. But Anuki is able to break the ice with any shy guy. And they ended up fighting over p-caps and cassette tapes, inside the double cab. I honestly thought they were going to beat each other up over a cassette.

We got the chance to see the mess as well, (unfortunately not a single officer was in) instead there were plenty of silver ornaments and cutlery show cased. We were so anxious to get to the bottom of it, that although we forgot to ask the two officers about it in all the excitement. We asked one of our close Air Force officers in Colombo about this.

He said that once upon a time when fairy tales like "Ali Baba and the forty thieves" were supposed to have taken place, they used to have their feasts with all the treasures put on to these kind of silver plates.

The distribution of treasures were not done, until they had enjoyed the food. Like wise even if any of the officers slightly touched one of the silver cutlery or ornaments during a function they have to pay a fine, of course this is an informal event. We did not forget to tease the officers saying that they are good story tellers.

There was always one thing we both didn't like about the Trinco trip, that's when we had to say good bye to our new yet life long friends. Anyway finally we reached the jetty and beheld the boat waiting to take us once again back to the place we came from.

Well, with all the good memories behind us, we still had a friendly grudge against the two officers. As soon as the officer who was at the wheel got off, Anuki as swiftly as she could manage sat on the driving seat and tried to pull out the cassette, because her cap was still with them.

For some reason, though she was successful with the mission she left it behind. Though she was kind enough to leave the cassette, she turned on the engine of the cab without keeping the leg on the clutch and break.

The lucky officers got another chance to tease us by saying that they thought the Colombo girls were smart, but seems like that we have come from "Thumpanae". Well, as we ran out of time, didn't have any choice except to say "will meet you all in our tract; Colombo to show real girl power".