Hi, travelling again. This time three weeks in Sri Lanka. We arrived here at the hotel at 1-30 am. The flight went well but with a stop over in Singapore it really drew things out. It was only two hours, just long enough to grab a bite to eat and was the shortest stop over available. No direct flights to this small country.
We are staying at a small hotel on the outskirts of Colombo for 3 nights (2and 1/2 really). It is an interesting building almost looks like a restored British era church with very high pitched ceilings. Owner is a busy, busy man and didn't get the chance to ask him in our brief conversation this morning.
I planned on having a nap this afternoon but crashed while Bob was wrestling with Boost this morning. He says I was out for about 2 hours. We have just had a tasty seafood lunch overlooking the water with a cool breeze blowing. There was heavy rain this morning while Bob was still asleep which has kept the temperature comfortable. Gentle introduction..
I will add photos when I can remember how.
Friday 26/9/25
Yesterday we took a TukTuk tour with a young English speaking Sri Lankan. Let me just say at the outset that although we are up at Negombo which is the Northern outskirts of Colombo I was very grateful that he was skilled at managing the traffic. It has a semblance of road rules here but really it is "he who dares rules". I was holding my breath quite often at intersections.
Our first stop was an undercover, open air fish market where there was an amazing quantity and variety of fish. Everything from white bait to the largest deep sea fish. Outside on mats was at least an acre (Bob says a hectare) of fish drying in the sun. The. Birds were taking a great interest in them but there seemed to be a system of keeping them moving on which wasn't overtly apparent. The two varieties we have seen are a crow like brownish bird called a Growk (?) And small white herons.
From there we visited a locally famous beach which was a yellow sand replica of Scarborough. We dutifully went for a walk, saw some young men having swimming/ surfing lessons and the adjourned to a very nice restaurant for a traditional lunch. This was cheese Koffta which was vegetables, chicken and melted cheese stir-fried into a tasty mound.
After lunch we moved on to a very beautiful Buddist temple complex which was an interesting mix of traditional and British influence architecture. After that the heat, which is not too bad and traffic exhaustion meant that we opted to go home to our comfortable hotel for an afternoon rest. .
Found a very nice restaurant for dinner last night with a great coffee and cake shop next door. Relaxed and listened to the thundering rain until it eased off and we caught a tuktuk home through very quiet streets. The distance wasn't far but pavements are non existent and the puddles were extensive.
Sat 27/9/25
Well yesterday was not really exciting as it was travel day to Colombo Central. Our host had offered to book a car for the trip in and we accepted. However he obviously forgot. I think a comment that he is a real wheeler dealer might give you the picture. When we queried the non arrival of the car he obviously couldn't get one and rang back to ask if we would like to go by TukTuk. I said a definite no! He then phoned again and said we would be collected at 10,30. This was really no inconvenience as we had no fixed schedule for the day. He then came to drive us himself a bit later than the promised time and we set off in his electric Honda. It took an hour and a half to get into the city and as the traffic built up I was very pleased we had been firm about nixing the TukTuk.
More later Bob is anxious to get to the station.
We are now in Kandy after a 2 1/2 hour trip which took three hours. The train was posted as an EXPRESS and it did get up to 65kms/hour from time to time. However there were frequent stops to let passengers on and off. Some of the stations were tiny and some quite impressive. When we arrived we were me by our car and driver as booked which was a relief as this was booked yesterday with an agency based at the railway station. The sign above the windows in big gold letters said
"Railway Travel Service" and being suckers we believed it. After agreeing to book all our car travel and our last train section with them, handing over the money(which was reasonable fortunately) we realised that we had been hassled. There was no identification of the agency's but we are convinced they were independent operators occupying Railway premises and delberately
they
The hassle Gail refers to is the likelihood we were duped into believing it's was an official rail service as the advert hoarding indicated. Also the discussion. I think now we are dealing with a sharp privateer
ReplyDeleteBut although a slight ongoing worry the driver seems fine and we're well aware of the offers and unwanted stops that may come as we've dealt with similar previously