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After my first adverse
reaction, the safety and peace of the quiet streets, cafes and shops of the
fort area grew on me and I wished we had a little more time (which probably
translates to half a day in Intrepid tour terms) before moving on with a 6 am
breakfast call and 7 am train to catch to Colombo.
This time we traveled second
class – which meant we had to haul our own luggage onto the train and scramble
for seats. This train was much more modern than our previous ones, with tray
tables and multiple fans to cool the entire length of the car. It was also much
more crowded, on a major route into the capital city. Over much of the route
the tsunami damage was still really evident and it was chilling to travel
beside the Indian Ocean and think of the water surging over the train cars.
We were all pretty burnt out
from the early start, bad breakfast and two weeks of travel and as usual Indika
did not tell us what the plan was until we arrived. Probably because he knew we
wouldn’t want to do it. It was a lot of driving on congested roads in a
sweltering unairconditioned van and seeing some landmarks and one extraordinary
stop to walk through “the busiest place in Colombo” which was exactly my
claustrophobic nightmare of Asian cities and why I had avoided them.
Okay, it
was fabulously interesting and colorful despite being smelly, dangerous and
unbelievably crowded. There were all kinds of old-fashioned vendors of
vegetables, fish parts, fabric and everything else that could be sold. But from
there the rest of the tour was about shopping in malls and modern stores – yes,
Colombo wants to be really contemporary but mostly all it seemed to us was
homogenized and it was not the kind of shopping that we wanted to do at the end
of our tour. In fact, we even had to eat lunch at the food court of the biggest
mall, so yes I guess we have seen it all now, from the timeless tea-pickers to
the fast foodies.
After checking into our
hotel, I took a tuk-tuk to the House of Fashion, which is the discount clothing
store like Filenes or Loehmans and bumped elbows with the Lankans in the
four-story tower of cheaper priced merchandise. Again, shockingly up-to-date
with scanners at the checkout counters ( have seen that nowhere else in
Southeast Asia). Of course there were 20 lines with probably 300 people waiting
to check out but it moved surprisingly quickly. The tuk-tuk driver back could
not find the hotel, which was a little scary but he asked and it worked out
okay.
We had our final dinner at
the Cricket Club Café, a restaurant that kind of recreates the colonial
atmosphere but mostly focuses on celebrating famous cricket players. As with
all once British countries, cricket is a big time sport in Sri Lanka and Indika
is a big fan. I didn’t much care about the cricket but I had a great piece of
grilled fish which I did care about a lot. We said our goodbyes in a drawn out
ceremony standing outside with Indika presenting each of us a little book about
Buddhism with something written in the front of it
he is such a proselytizer!)
and walked home to our hotel through the dark noisy streets of Colombo. ![]() |
Indika |
I spent very little money in
Sri Lanka (beyond what I spent on the Intrepid tour originally which was more
than enough) – so I did not feel bad on loading up on souvenirs before I left,
since I don’t think there will really be anything to buy in Cyprus or Greece.
It just means I have to haul them around for the next 3 weeks…
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The last supper - Cricket Club Cafe |
At the airport I needed to
get Euros to bring to Cyprus and I ended up having to change my money into
rupees and then into Euros – apparently it was the only way. There was never an
exchange fee at any ATMS in Sri Lanka; perhaps they wanted to encourage people
to spend their money, which is a smart thing.
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