Okay, the 29th floor bar, Ahasa, is somehow even better.

We had dinner at Yi Jing, a Chinese restaurant on the third floor. Getting there required us to take three elevators, but it was worth it. (I neglected to take pictures of most of our dishes.)











I am getting a nightcap negroni at the lobby bar, Silvertips, and then will call it a night.

There is a parade this morning. I can make out that some of the banners say "Step to Glory." A quick Google search revealed nothing in English about it. The participants appear to be various school groups. There are multiple bands and others blowing horns. A band just played "Rasputin" as it passed.

From my perspective, there are two unique things about the parade. One, there is no one watching it along the route, as far as I can tell. Two, although it's clearly sanctioned, traffic isn't blocked, so the parade becomes disjointed when groups stop to permit cars to turn.

We began today with another bountiful breakfast buffet. It was far too busy to photograph. Everything I tried was good except for the chicken curry, which needed more spice.

Our initial plan had been to go to the Barefoot Cafe for black pork and jazz. This would have required us to pack up earlier than desired, so we decided to eat at the hotel. Plus, a bartender at the Oyster Bar yesterday evening persuaded us to make a lunch reservation at the adjoining restaurant, Avartana. This ended up being a wise choice.

The restaurant offers 4-5 different tasting menu options for dinner and only one 13-course option for lunch. This menu for both of us plus two cocktails cost just over LKR 40,000, or around $135. A fantastic value with superb and creative cooking. They happily swapped out some of the seafood courses for choices from the vegetarian menu. (Where I did this, I also photographed the normal option.)

I spent the rest of the afternoon reading, then we got dinner at the tandoori restaurant, Pershawri. The cauliflower and mughal chicken were good. The portions were way too big though! They gave us about eight chicken thighs.


I liked that each of the dining outlets in the hotel had a distinctive design and character. This one even provided a nice bib for us to wear.


It is a testament to how remarkably smooth the trip has been so far that the first very minor annoyance of the trip occurred during dinner. Before and when we checked out, we inquired whether we could keep making room charges (to accrue Bonvoy points) and said that we would settle the bill before we departed in the hotel-arranged car. We were told that this would be fine, and it worked at lunch. In the middle of dinner, a manager called my wife to ask why we hadn't signed the bill yet. Perhaps they thought we wanted to jump the check! Unsurprisingly, the staff weren't able to do a room charge for dinner, and I paid with a credit card.

The drive to the airport was uneventful until it started to rain heavily just before we arrived. Like airports I have visited in India, there is a security check outside the entrance to the airport building where we showed our flight details. I had made a screenshot of the AA app. Security took place before the check-in counters. (Edited to add: there is an additional security screen at the gate area.) There was a fast track lane, but it wasn't really necessary because there were no lines.

At the time we arrived, only one Sri Lankan business check-in desk was open. Two more agents arrived a few minutes later at 9 pm, and we checked our bags to JFK and received all three boarding passes. I presume that flights here are heavily banked, and one bank likely begins around midnight, including our 11:40 pm flight.


There was also fast track border control, which again had no line.

The Serendib Lounge is by invitation only for business and first class One World passengers. It is located past the Duty Free shops and to the right when you enter the departures area. It is pretty small for the airport's premier lounge, but it is a small airport. There is seating for about 80 people, consisting of small tables with high backed chairs and recliners.

We were the only guests for 5-10 minutes after we arrived. I am way too full to eat or drink anything. The food looks pretty good. There is also a small bar.









Our initial return routing was BKK-CMB-AUH-LHR-JFK. BA's seasonal cancellation of the AUH-LHR route scuttled this plan, which ended up being preferable when award space on this routing opened up. While still not ideal, this way is both more direct and 40,000 AA miles per person cheaper.

It seems unikely that the flight will be on time given that it's past 11:40, and we haven't started boarding yet.


After the security screen, the gate agent asked to see our passports and visas. I don't think that a visa is required to transit BOM, but we applied for e-visas, initially in case we had a flight cancellation and needed to leave the airport. Then, because we had the visa anyway, I booked the T2 landside transit hotel because that seemed more pleasant than 6 hours in the lounge overnight. With this delay of uncertain length, it may no longer make sense to do this. We had been sitting at the gate for 50 minutes, and boarding just began, with business class and rows 22-28 invited to board first.

The seat and amenities are the same as last time; the menu is of course different. The airport wifi doesn't reach the plane with sufficient strength, so I will upload it later.

I ordered the lamb dish despite not being hungry at all. The kofta was good, the pot pie and dessert not so much. Both were a bit dry. I liked the breakfast far more.




The cabin crew were very nice. Sri Lankan has a fun feature where you can order a cake for the meal. I thought it would be a fun way to wrap up our trip. The flight attendant spoke to me privately about how I'd like it served and offered to pair it with champagne. My wife fell asleep at takeoff and napped for the duration of the flight, so I ate the cake alone.



We landed 20 minutes late at 2:30 am and initially tried to stay airside. A representative met the plane and guided us to the flight connections desk, where Air India transfers, probably for an earlier flight, were processed first. At 3:15, when she took our passports, this seemed fine. But when she collected a stack of other passengers' passports, we decided that exiting was a better play.

We got through immigration and the customs scanner in under 30 minutes (it could have been shorter if we had located and filled out the arrival form straight away) and went down one level to the transit hotel, which was well marked. The room is more than adequate for our purposes. I won't sleep at this point but will appreciate the shower.





Edited to add: Before I showered, I realized that Mumbai and Sri Lanka are in the same time zone (as is all of India), so I had been in the GMT +5:30 time zone before. But at the time of that visit, I did not have a smartphone and was not at all attuned to what time it was elsewhere.

Nice report on the Colombo hotel. Sri Lanka is on my short list and I'll definitely consider it, although I understand that none of my Bonvoy LTP benefits apply at ITC properties.

Thanks! At this one in particular, I am not sure how much status adds, though it is definitely recognized. The excellent happy hour is free for everyone, and I think breakfast is, too--at least, we didn't have to pay, and as I noted above, it was busy. We definitely were upgraded and got a later checkout than normal (2 PM vs. 12 PM). (My wife has Ambassador status.) There is the normal "elite status" check-in line, and a manager came to where we were sitting to introduce herself.

P.S. It was a shame we didn't experience more of the country, and I certainly want to come back.

After leaving the transit hotel, we took an elevator and escalators up to the fourth floor. Fast track security and border control were very quick. We then ventured to the Adani West lounge, which has business and first class sections. We had access to the first class section by virtue of One World Emerald status. Before we were allowed to enter the lounge at all, the staff had to confirm our eligibility with BA (despite us having BA boarding passes). Presumably, we would have received a lounge invitation if we used BA's check-in desk.

The lounge had about 8 hot options and made-to-order dosas and omelettes. We got the latter two, which were good.

The boarding area was a massive scrum at the time we arrived. There must have been no fewer than 75 pre-boarders, of whom a third were in wheelchairs. This was followed by a call for passengers with children under 5.

When group 1 was called next, we were the only passengers to come forward and muscled our way through the crowd. But we were turned away and told to do a document check. The gate agent told us that she needed to scan our bag tags, and our bags would not be loaded until she did that. She also swiped our passports again. That was a new one for me; I've done international connections on different airlines in the past and didn't need to present my bag tags. That was a while ago and not on BA or in Mumbai, though.

I declined breakfast and slept nearly 6 hours, when I awoke to use the lavatory. I probably could have fallen back asleep for the remainder of the flight, but I could hear the preparations for the second meal and decided to eat. I liked the halloumi and channa masala. I think 9-10 hours is the sweetspot for me for flight length.

This was my first time on a BA A350. There was no first class on this plane, and being near the front lavatory in row 3 was nice. While I didn't notice any perceptible difference in the cabin, I did sleep much better than on the 777 to MLE. That probably can be put down to me being more tired.

For whatever reason, the wifi didn't work on this flight. I passed the final three hours watching some Netflix shows and reading. As has been my experience on BA, the crew were warm and helpful.

We made it from the arrival gate, to the T3 bus, through security, and into the Cathay Pacific lounge in 30 minutes. I'd imagine that Monday mid-afternoon is a relative lull for flight connections. Still, this was a much better experience than taking the Heathrow Express for the terminal transfer going the other way.

We got a few dishes in the dining room, then headed to the AA lounge. This was closed by the time we tried to access it on our last visit, so I wanted to check it out. There are a good number of people in the first class section. While nothing remarkable, the a la carte options look good on paper. The main benefit of being here right now is that our boarding is delayed, and we will get updates about when we should leave the lounge--which happened as I type this.

Even with a delay in boarding, we pushed back a few minutes early and were airborne quicker than I'm accustomed to at LHR.

We were in the middle pair of seats in the first row of business class on this 777-300. The footwell on this plane was bigger than the plane we took going the other way.

The slow cooked beef was one of the better meals I've had on AA. Of course, I had to get a sundae. The BBQ beef sandwich was serviceable.

This was a long flight for this route at almost 8 hours. I tried to stay awake but succumbed to drowsiness at the 4-5 hour mark and awoke just before the pre-arrival meal. The cabin crew were very good and promptly offered refills.

Luckily, we disembarked via a jet bridge that put us right next to the escalator going down to immigration. We were through Global Entry in seconds, and we retrieved our second bag off the belt within 25 minutes of landing. We got a cab quickly and should be home before 9:30.

If you made it to the end of this very long report, chapeau! Thanks for following along.

Happy and safe travels to all.

Thanks for taking us along on your journey, great report, thoroughly enjoyed. Chapeau!