Woke up and had an amazingly huge and delicious breakfast courtesy of Bernard’s wife. We were there for 5 days and it was different every day. The first day included string hoppers, which are completely different from hoppers. They’re more like rice noodles but served in a patty shape to mix with curries. Curries are served at every meal and there is often little difference between meals. This is not a bad thing, as rice and curry here means 4 or 5 curries with your rice as well as sambal, shaved coconut mixed with savory spices and chilis. Most of the tourists we met put Sri Lankan food only second to Thai in their travels, which is high praise.
After breakfast we got organized in our apartment for awhile before meeting Devi and John at the botanical gardens. We got there via Mohammed, a favourite tuktuk driver for Devi and John who was cheerful and chatty.
The gardens themselves resemble many colonial gardens, with trees from all over the world and an area of classicly British shaped bushes. Highlights included a series of trees hanging over the path heavy with squeaking bats and a giant Java fig tree which had a few dozen people picnicking under it and its own guard to shoo kids off of the fragile branches. Many families were out enjoying the greenery and it was a refreshing place for walking on a hot day.
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John and I walked back while Meg and Devi went to visit Devi’s sister in the hospital. Pedestrians are far down the pecking order in Sri Lanka, so John broke the journey down into easy and hard bits. The easy ones were walking along the sidewalk, which was often squares of concrete over open sewers which were sometimes broken or missing, forcing the walker onto the road. The hard parts wee crossing the street or roundabouts, where you had to be super vigilant to avoid getting run over or solidly bumped by some form of vehicle.
We made it to John and Devi’s place ahead of the women and had a fine chat with her dad. He’s in his 90s and not too mobile but has had an eventful life and is full of great stories. Once everyone got there we talked for a while longer and then called Mohammed to drive us back to our room. Nearby was another recommended restaurant that was part of a local chain. We ordered our food but forgot to remind them to make our juice without ice. Meg wanted her watermelon juice anyway, so made a toast to Hep C and took a swig. Unfortunately, the bottom of her glass fell out, covering her in the sticky, red juice. The staff, in full deer-in-headlights mode again, stayed away while she went to the bathroom to clean up. One brave soul came over and asked if she wanted more juice.
Meg didn’t want to finish her meal in juicy clothes, so we got up to shift our order to take out. No one had cleaned up our table yet so we had to warn off a family that was starting to sit there. A manager finally took charge and deducted the juice from our bill with the rest of the staff keeping a frightened distance from us.
We walked our meal home (just meh again) and were glad that we had a kitchenette to dine in when we were told by one of the house staff that we had forgotten something at the restaurant. We checked our wallets and phones and insisted that we hadn’t, then one of the restaurant waiters came in with a new juice for Meg. Somehow in our conversation with them Meg had mentioned where we were staying so they knew where to find us. This juice came in a solid takeout cup and so Meg was able to enjoy it without enduring further trauma.
After our meal, bed. We still were jetlagged and so by about mid-evening we would start to nod off so early to bed and early to rise was the order of the day.
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