We arrived in Colombo and given my low expectations I was really pleasantly suprised. We arrived late afternoon and headed straight for Galle Face Green which is a coastal park where the locals gather for kite flying, eating ice cream, yoga, exercise or just a family outing. My first impressions were of a very smiley friendly people, a gorgeous sunset and a fantastic first first meal for less than £1.50. On the second day in Colombo we set off to explore the city further and were met by a lovely helpful old chap who told us we were going the wrong way. His name was "Bernard" and he was a Buddist teacher who was off to pray. "Apparently" it was a bank holiday so the markets and temples we were planning to visit were closed but our new found friend suggested another temple which was just 15 minutes walk. Of we went, with "Bernard" showing us the way. To cut a long story short after 30 minutes walking we realised we'd been had and "Bernard" was taking us to his temple where no doubt he'd ask us for a donation. After 45 minutes we reached the temple and sure enough "Bernard" asked for a donation. We actually had a lovely walk through some of the nicer parts of Colombo (lovely colonial buildings, cricket pitches and wide tree lined streets) so we gave "Bernard" a small "donation" and set off for the Markets... On the way we encountered several more elderly gents all with traditional english names all of whom were teachers and wanted to help us in our touristic endeavours... Albert was another favourite. Bless them! :-)
The Markets weren't closed but they we're soo impressive so we took ourselves on a walking tour of Colombo. It is a strange city. There's a fusion of old colonial architecture, and very new. Since the end of the troubles in Sri Lanka the economy seems to be booming and there's building work everywhere. I suspect Sri Lanka and especially Colombo will be a very differnt place in 5 years time.As neither Tina or I are city people we didn't linger in Colombo, so on day 3 got an early bus south for the coastal city of Galle. Getting the right bus was a learning experience. At one point we asked for the air con bus to Galle and were directed to the bus right next to me. Somewhat skeptically we got on and were sat down (with 4 back packs and about 60 people crammed on the bus this wasn't as easy as you'd think). It was then we realised that the bus wasn't air con and it wasn't heading south to the Coast. :-) Good job we're seasoned travellers eh? Sometime later.....
Galle is an old dutch coastal fort with a really mellow vibe. There's not a great deal to do, so we chilled out for a couple of days, walked around the fortress walls, drank milkshakes, ate some of the best rice and curry I've ever had and people watched. The local families on the beach seemed as curious about us as we were about them so there was a lot of "Hellos", "Where are you from?" and smiles all round.
Day 5 saw us heading further south to the beach town of Mirissa which is a beach town famous for it's whale watching trips. The beach here was lovely, with lots of Beach bars serving cool shakes/cocktails and playing Bob Marley on repeat. Everyone here seemed to be good looking and have the perfect bronzed beach body. I obviously, immediately felt right at home... :-( We treated ourselves to a lovely resort Cabana, and could easily have stayed for a lot longer. The Whale watching was good and we got to see a bunch of whales including the planets largest animal the Blue whale, however it was quite sad to see some of the smaller less qualified hotel boats which weren't giving the whales enough space. After 3 days we decided to move on, so I sadly dragged my still palid corpse onto the bus south (hopefully the right one!)
We thought Mirissa was paradise until we headed further down the coast to Tangalla. The beach in Tangalla stretches for miles and is pretty much deserted. We walked for miles and only saw a handful of people. Most of these were local fishermen taking shelter from the sun under the palm trees. The surf is quite dangerous so you can only swim in a few spots but the crashing sound of the huge dumping waves will stay with me forever. We came for 2 days and stayed 5 (most of which in a hammock). At night we saw giant green turtles coming ashore to lay their eggs, and fire flies gliding around our cabana, all with the constant rythmic sound track of crashing surf. Paradise.We eventually dragged ourselves away to head to off for some Safari and Highland trekking... I'm missing the beach already... Tangalla I'll be back.
No comments:
Post a Comment