Feb.11

We got up early again and I went out hunting for breakfast.  I found a café that did cappuccinos and had pastries, but not the sweet ones we were used to.  These are called “short eats” and are pastries filled with savory vegetable and meat fillings.  I brought some back with our coffees and they made a fine breakfast.  “Short eats” often filled the gap when we needed a small meal during the day in our travels, as heat often reduced our appetites.

After breakfast, Devi and John had invited us along for a small group tour of a house built by the famous Sri Lankan architect Geoffrey Bawa.  It was only about a 15 minute walk from our hotel and so nicely handy.  The house was constructed of three former houses which he bought up and connected.  There were pools and plants everywhere with some areas built around or highlighting his favourite trees.  The rooms were all bright and filled with a variety of pieces he had collected from all over the world.  The spaces had a relaxed feeling that couldn’t be captured in pictures. It was fun exploring the house and checking out the view from the rooftop patio.  The master bedroom was available for rent (at quite a price, we’re told) so that was the only place off limits.  The tour organizer knew Devi’s family and so wouldn’t take our money.

Rentable living room in the Bawa house.

We went back to our room, checked out and then met Devi and John at the Colombo train station, which was smaller than I expected for such a large city.  They had the ticket so we were supposed to wait outside the station which really had no place to hang out.  We went to the information office and they told us we could buy tickets for 10 cents each to get in.  We did this, no one checked them and we hunkered down on a bench to wait.

They found us and we got onto a comfortable air-conditioned train with space to put our backpack on the upper rack.  On the trip we saw for the first time slums beside the tracks.  For most of our trip we encountered occasional beggars but not nearly so many as in Toronto.  We rarely saw makeshift housing but we were usually in touristic areas so I guess that wasn’t surprising. 

The trip was a nice one with the scenery improving as we got up into the mountains.  It took several hours as things move slower in Sri Lanka.  You can’t think of a 100 kms as an hour’s drive as it’s usually 3 and a half or more  here.  We chatted and snacked and enjoyed the ride.

View from the train.

On arrival we waited for their regular tuktuk driver and swatted a few mosquitoes at the station. 
They’ve eradicated malaria but dengue fever is a problem in Sri Lanka so applying deet became a regular ritual. 

We checked into their family friend Bernard’s air b’n’b, which was a large suite with a kitchenette and living room.  We walked down to the recommended restaurant which was a Sri Lankan international chain specializing in biryani. 

I was flipping through the menu and noticed that the last page was crawling with ants and so put the menu on the floor.  A waiter came by and took it before I could explain why.  He then came back with a menu that turned out to be the same one, still crawling so onto the floor it went.  He again took it before we could explain why.  Meg then went over to the cash and had to show them the ants before we got proper menus.  Another recurring theme was to be in a situation surrounded by multiple young staff who go all deer-in-headlights whenever something happens which might require them to assist someone.

Bernard's place.

Also, the biryani was just meh.  The restaurant at least was a short walk from where we were staying so we were able to fall into bed soon after dinner.

First real Day - Exploring Colombo

 

Feb. 10

We got up fairly early and ready for breakfast.  A short walk away was a café attached to a hotel where we started the food part of our trip.  We went for the Sri Lankan breakfast which included three kinds of hoppers and some chutney.  Hoppers are more or less bowl-shaped coconut crepes cooked with thin sides and a thick bottom.  We had two egg hoppers each and a sugar hopper.  Very tasty.

The place had real coffee and cool fans as well as a view of the road and the ocean with trains frequently going between the two.  We were surprised to see the doorman swigging from a 40 ounce alcohol bottle at 8 am but later found out that was normal behaviour in this country.  Liquor bottles are sturdy and have good screw caps so we noticed many drivers and workers swigging water from them as they toiled.  Considering that most of the time we were there the temperature was mid-30s before humidex, water was always a necessity to have on hand.

We headed back to the hotel to freshen up before heading out on our one day in Colombo.  It is by far the largest city in Sri Lanka but all of the guide books recommend leaving there as quickly as possible as they say there is little to see in the city. 

Our coconut vendor

Our helpful hotel staff helped us book a tuktuk and we headed off to the big downtown market.  This is a crowded place that covers blocks of the central city.  There are some fancy shops but it’s mainly small stalls selling produce or household items.  The streets are crowded with tuktuks and other vehicles squeezing by all of the people and lots of action happening.  Down side pathways were narrow passages  where shops mainly sold trinkets on a wholesale basis.  If you lived in Colombo, this is where the bargains would probably be had.   I found some local electrical adapters and we drank and ate from a green coconut sliced open with a machete.  Once we finished drinking he took the coconut back, sliced a sliver off the outside and chopped it open.  The sliver was used as a scoop to get out the gelatinous coconut meat out before discarding the whole shell. 

The Market

We wanted to see the red mosque but it was set to open 30 minutes later than the internet told us so we went in pursuit of lunch.  We avoided the restaurant closest to the mosque as a tout had attached himself to us and we didn’t want him hassling the restaurant for his cut for tourists eating there.  We went around the corner to what was probably a typical local place.  We ordered rotis and parathas, with my parathas coming with scoops of curry and condiments on a metal plate wet with tap water.  Our drinks both had ice in them, which was something we were avoiding but I didn’t notice mine had any until I got close to the bottom as it was a creamy drink.  They kept offering me more curry and we had tea there while watching locals come and go.

Back at the red mosque, we were let in by a vendor at the gate and were able to watch men walk around and worship through an iron gate while we waited for our tour to begin.   A bunch of us waited for about 45 minutes until a man with little English started to hand around robes for the women and insufficiently dressed men to wear.  About 20 minutes after that our guide arrived, which was only a few minutes before the mosque was supposed to close for tours for the afternoon.  He led us through the building giving us a little bit of information but letting us have lots of time to poke around.  The mosque was set up with the most ornate work in the old building and the new building comprising several floors of large open spaces able to accommodate 10,000 worshippers.  The view from the roof was impressive, but the best views were really of the outside of the building from the street.  The use of red and white was quite striking from a distance but the work on the inside didn’t compare with what we had seen in Morocco and Turkey.

The Red Mosque.

After the tour we were hot and tired and wanted to head home.  We talked to a few tuktuk drivers but the process was long, with many of them needing to go to nearby stores to help translate our bargaining.  Touts tried to do this for us, which always inflated the price.  We finally found someone for a reasonable amount and he tried to be a tour guide by pointing out some random building along our way home.   He made some excuse about needing directions and tried to get us to go into a gem store,  Meg gave him an angry rant about how awful gems were and what a scourge status symbols are on society.  We finally got home and he tried to tell me that we had a agreed on $7 American for the ride, not 700 Rupees ( a large difference).  When we dismissed this he then went on about how he deserved a tip but we weren’t listening to him by that point.  When we got back to our room I installed the PickMe app on the phone to book rides so that we could be spared such problems in the future.

We met our friends Devi and John at a nearby café and had lime sodas and fruit juice in a fan-cooled courtyard of a local fair trade store, Barefoot.  We grabbed some lunch and went around the neighbourhood in search of an ATM.   The fees varied greatly here (from nothing to $5) and my card consistently worked while Meg’s only sometimes worked, even at bank branches where it had worked before. 

We met Devi and John at their hotel, which had a stunning glass wall view of the city, and headed out to Devi’s relatives' place for dinner.  This was a house that was newly renovated and stunning, with an ornate wooden wall from a library on one side of the large living room across from an enormous chandelier.  There was a nice open courtyard with trees and fish and well restored antiques all over the space.  We were introduced to many family members and had good conversations and excellent local food throughout the evening.  Soon after 9, though, the jetlag set in and Meg and I could barely keep our eyes open. We said goodnight and grabbed a tuktuk back to our room, where we fell over almost immediately. 

Dinner!

Transit Day - Getting there

 

Feb. 9

We left Toronto just before a snowstorm was expected (not the BIG one) and so were quite pleased with ourselves about our timing.  We sat with a charming woman from Kerala who surprisingly had a special meal delivered marked “bland”.  You’d think that was the default setting for airplane food, but you can request it to be even blander.  To be fair , the biryani on the first leg of the trip was quite good. We figured that with the airport being so close to Brampton that they might have gotten in touch with some decent Indian caterers.

We had screens with a good selection of movies and talked with some of our fellow passengers by the bathroom as we stretched our legs every few hours.  It was about as painless as a 14 hour flight can be.

We were warned that the Abu Dhabi airport was confusing with gates set very far apart but we got to ours quickly and enjoyed cleaner and more spacious washrooms than any plane could offer.

The next 4 hour flight was more problematic.  The Etihad website showed that our seats were bulkhead, meaning more legroom, but it was all a terrible lie.  Add a lack of entertainment centres and meh food to the mix and one gets an unsatisfactory 4 hour flight.

We were warned to have extra copies of our Sri Lankan visas as well as copies of our COVID histories available but they weren’t necessary.  As part of he visa process, I had to upload passport images that had a readable barcode so customs had all of our info on their screens as soon as they scanned our passports.  After a quick confirmation of our existences we were inside the arrivals terminal.

We were worried about our pick up for a short time as our driver was sitting down with his sign with our names on it partially obscured, but we tracked him down.  This was at about 8:30pm local time and the hour drive from the airport to Colombo was smooth and fast.

Our hotel appeared to be up a dark alley but our room was large and clean with filtered drinking water and a firm mattress.  Everywhere we ended up staying over the three weeks had a good mattress, not sure why but it was very welcome.  We had a 10 1/2 hour time difference to deal with so it was lucky that we were exhausted after our trip and it was about 10:30 pm local time when we got sorted and were able to fall into bed.