Exploring Colombo

 

Hi all,

Last night after I wrote whilst at the airport, our bags thankfully arrived on the carousel. We can handle delays, but by the one hour mark we were starting to envisage ourselves wearing the same clothes for two weeks, and having no toiletries to use. Hooray for fresh clothes! We then headed into the arrivals hall and went to the taxi desk for the company we had pre-booked with. The taxi ride was approximately 50 minutes into Colombo.

Out near the airport there was electricity, but after driving for a little while we hit many stretches of road with no power and thus no street lights. For those not aware – Sri Lanka is currently undergoing its worst economic crisis since gaining independence from the UK in 1948. There are long power outages every day at the moment, and a lack of every day essentials such as certain foods, medicines and petrol. This has sparked a lot of discontent towards the government and quite a lot of protests recently.

Thankfully, our hotel had a generator which we had confirmed in advance, so we had a shower and then went to bed. By the time we got to our room it was just prior to 3am, so we slept for about four hours all up before waking for our walking tour.

When Shane Warne recently passed away, I commented to Mum that people here would likely bring him up when we said we were from Australia. It took a lightning fast 30 seconds between us leaving the hotel to meet our walking tour guide for a man trying to sell us a tuk tuk ride saying “where are you from?” me saying “Australia” and him saying “oh – cricket and Shane Warne!”. The man was friendly and meant well, but he kept walking with us trying to sell us tours despite us saying we were OK. Luckily, our walking tour guide Harold came to our rescue greeting us. Our meeting point was the Dutch Hospital shopping precinct. This building used to be – you guessed it – a Dutch hospital. Many different countries colonised Sri Lanka over the years; the Portuguese from 1505 to 1658, the Dutch from 1658 to 1796 and the British from 1796 to 1948. This hospital was therefore built in the late 1600s and was mainly used for Dutch sailors.

From here we explored a fairly grand (or once grand) area of Colombo, which had lots of different architectural styles. The buildings alternated between Portuguese, Dutch and colonial styles, which is the pattern we will see around Sri Lanka due to the different colonisations. We saw the central lighthouse, the only lighthouse in the world that has a clock, and then a grand chandelier inside what is now the Economic Museum. Many of the buildings were fairly dilapidated but you could tell in their prime they would have been very grand. My favourite was the old General Post Office, which reminded me of Gringott’s in ‘Harry Potter’. Unfortunately I couldn’t take a photo here though as it was opposite the President’s House and was under military guard.

We then went into the Grand Oriental Hotel and enjoyed some hot Ceylon tea in their upstairs bar area. This hotel was built in 1837 and boasted one of the first proper drainage systems in this part of the world. The view out over the Colombo Port was sunny and lovely. Here we sat for a while whilst Harold told us stories about Sri Lanka and explained the colonisations, currency and more. We learned that the Sri Lankan flag, designed after gaining independence from the Brits, is made up of green to represent Muslims, orange to represent the Tamils, the red and lion section to represent the Sinhalese who are 70% of the population these days. The corner sections then represent the minorities. Despite all of this inclusivity, Sri Lanka had a 26 year civil war from 1983-2009. I daresay we will learn more about this on our two week tour.

We then headed into the “real” Colombo as Harold called it. We went to the Jami Ul-Alfar Mosque, which was beautiful in its red and white glory. It was built in 1908 in just one year. Harold then took us through several busy laneways and markets to get a sense of how busy the city can be. We saw people carrying impossible amounts of heavy bags and products, coloured trucks that deliver such products, lots of tuk tuks, and people everywhere! The final market we went to was a vegetable market, where Harold treated us each to a King Coconut drink directly from a coconut – delish!

Finally, we caught a tuk tuk and went to the Kingsbury Hotel. Sadly, this was one of the three hotels in April 2019 that was bombed during the Easter attacks that saw me cancel my last trip here. However, you wouldn’t know today. It’s a beautiful building, and Harold took us to the roof top to admire the view. We could see a protest crowd forming in the distance, and faintly hear them chanting. Unfortunately a lot of the view is being ruined by reclaimed land that Chinese companies have created with dredged sand, and Harold tells us in the next 5-10 years that area will look like Dubai, choc-a-block full of high rise apartments. He said he fears due to the current situation that countries near to Sri Lanka are offering help but will sink their claws in and get to call the shots such as this more and more, and is worried Sri Lanka will lose some of its charm and personality. We finished by having a snack in the café downstairs, and then Harold bid us farewell. He was a great guide. I enjoyed hearing him tell us about his family, you could tell he loves them very much. Sadly he has not had much work as a tour guide the last few years. It was nice to be able to support him and his work.

At this point I want to stop and acknowledge what a big deal getting through a walking tour was for me. A week ago, putting on my shoes or drying my toes after a shower would reduce me to tears and screams of pain due to an awful flare up of my right hip. I truly didn’t know how I would fare on this trip. My hip is nowhere near perfect and most of my progress is due to good painkillers, but I am so relieved that it seems I will be able to have a relatively comfortable trip in terms of the pain. Sleeping at this point seems the most difficult, but I hope that busy and interesting days will wear me out enough that I can sleep anyway.

On the way back to the hotel, I purchased a SIM card. We then grabbed our bags and moved to the hotel which is the starting point for our G Adventures tour tonight. Then, we quickly stopped at a souvenir shop to buy a magnet before heading to my friend Roshane’s house. Back in 2019 when I was first supposed to come, my friend Emily put me in touch with Roshane. Roshane studied in Australia for a while and lived there from 2014-2017. He met my friend Emily’s husband Cam through church and they became good friends. For the last few weeks, just has he did in 2019, Roshane has been keeping me in the loop about the situation here and providing me with information. He and his wife recently had a baby who is now five weeks old, so we brought them some children’s Panadol and regular Panadol as this is virtually impossible to come by here at the moment. They kindly invited us to their home for lunch today. We enjoyed some delicious food, and their company. It was really interesting speaking with Roshane about what’s happening in Sri Lanka at the moment, and what has happened in the past including the civil war.

Now we are back relaxing in the room ahead of our 6pm tour meeting. I’m so excited to start my first group tour since Cuba in January 2020. G Adventures are the best!

Love to all
Claire
Xoxox

PS: Not happy, Collingwood! That’s all I’ll say about that. Glad I am in a different hemisphere..