Finally, the days have rolled around again and it’s time for holidays. With a scheduled 10:30 flight out of Brisbane it was pretty much ‘get up and go’. It all started out pretty well, the Uber driver was on time, but that was about where the on-time part of the day ended. We were taking a QANTAS flight to Singapore, something I haven’t done in a long time, usually opting for Singapore Airlines.
So the QANTAS plane was one of their old clunkers and it seemed it had an ‘engineering issue’ that had to be remediated prior to take off. So we weren’t off to a confident start, but I’d paid good money, so away we went. They made the entertainment system work after take off, so we settled in for a few movies. The highlight for me, as a Midnight Oil fan was the documentary called ‘The Hardest Line’. I enjoyed reliving the music and the political events that backdropped their story. It did leave me wondering about where the ‘radical musicians’ that challenge the establishment are. I guess they are all on ‘The Voice’ being non-controversial. From there I got less cerebral as the day went on finishing with some b-grade horror films which despite the .
By the time we arrived in Singapore, we’d beed advised that our connecting flight to Columbo was also delayed, so an extra couple of hours was required in Singapore. While we waited in the airport, we chatted to a retired couple from Canada who were on their way to ‘wing it’ around Sri Lanka as opposed to our tour-based approach.
We arrived at our hotel by about 1 AM Local time and were very keen to sleep in a bed. The hotel is well-appointed and clean and tidy. It is right on the ‘beach’ and has great views. I’ve always said growing up on the east coast of Australia has really spoilt my expectations of what a beach should look like, so as a result I am often disappointed. We woke up around 7:30 this morning, which is a bit like lunch time for my stomach. The view off the balcony:
We have breakfast included in our room rate here, so it was off to the hotel restaurant for an omelette and some buffet choices, before setting out of foot to explore the local area. We explored a couple of the local catholic churches and some hindu temples. I hadn’t expected that the elaborate nature of the christian faith here, not something I’d noticed in India. Hopefully after many years of civil war, modern Sri Lanka is gradually becoming more of a religious ‘melting pot’.
We walked up to the old Dutch Fort, which is now very close to Sri Lanka’s prison, so we didn’t spend much time there. While taking a break from the heat and humidity of the day, I stuck up a conversation with a local fisherman. He was a 3rd generation fisherman and encoraged us that we really needed to visit the fish markets. Interestingly, his english was very good and I still haven’t worked out whae or why he would have chosed to become educated.
From there it was lunch time, so we headed to the Ceylon Club, which has a traditional British ambience and the food was excellent. We had Paprika Prawns, Steamed Clams and finished with a crab meat pasta. It was a great way to escape the hustle and heat of the outside streets.
We were both feeling pretty tired after lunch, so we found our way back to the hotel for an afternoon relax, which may have resulted in a little snoozing. Our hotel looks west, so we were keen to take some sunset photos and watch the world go by on the water near our hotel. A busload of tourist showed up later in the afternoon and started up a cricket game, which was fun to watch.
The main road nearby is a busy stretch with constant reminders that ‘cost of living’ pressures mean different things to different people. Sri Lanka is working through some serious economic challenges after many years of political unrest, but does look to be coming out the other side with the election of a new president. This means the streets are getting busier and there are lots of nice restaurants. We had a nice (spicy) fish curry and a chicken kottu dish. Thankfully a little rain came in as we ate and cooled the temperature for our walk back to the hotel.
We’ll be doing some more discovering around Negombo over the next day are two until we join our tour….
Until tomorrow!
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