Part 2: Sri Lanka

7/2/2018

Day 3: Colombo

After a relatively short flight, Sunday evening we arrived in Sri Lanka. Colombo is the capital but it is about 45mins from the airport. We stayed at a lovely hotel in the Fort area, C1 Colombo Fort. A modern design with some dorms and private rooms too. There is not lots to do in Colombo so we wandered around with our trusty Lonely Planet guide to tick off the main attractions by foot. A lot of these attractions are old colonial buildings due to its British history.

The Dutch Hospital area is a little courtyard with shops and cafes/restaurants which we are going to go back to for dinner when we are back here in about 2 weeks!!

We walked down to the Pettah Market area which was selling everything and anything and was a hustle and bustle in the streets much like any other market in Asia!

Here you will find the Dutch Museum amid the madness... not quite what I was expecting but I am sure it is of some interest to someone?!

From everything I saw in Colombo, I still couldn't get over some of the buildings. They were beautiful and within poorer areas of the city there was a stark contrast. And a reminder of when they were part of the British colony until 1948.

Our walking route around Colombo Fort and Pettah area

We then explored Galle Fort area, which is basically a green which looks out from the West Coast of Sri Lanka. Nice to take a walk along here, but not so nice to see a man who had kept a monkey as a pet and was trying to get us to watch him make the monkey do tricks. But on our walk here we got a glimpse of our first Sri Lankan train which was great to see with the backdrop of the sea as well.

We had our first taste of Sri Lankan curry at a food court in the basement of a shopping mall a 5 minute walk south of the fort. There were lots of local people getting their lunches here which was a good sign of the quality of the food!! It was pretty spicy!! Luckily there was an ice-cream shop conveniently placed here too, and there were locals getting ice cream too; so it wasn't just me who needed to cool my mouth down haha!

We changed hotels to Whitehouse Residences as there had been a mix up in the booking in the other one...namely I had only booked one night haha!!! But this meant we were based a bit further South of the Fort area so had another base to explore. We went for a walk to the main park in Colombo which was behind the National Museum, and had lots of artists displaying and selling their work which made for an interesting walk. The museum was a grand building and whilst we did not go in (much to Matt's disappointment!!) the building was iconic to Colombo and good to see.

The lonely planet guidebook is our bible this trip along with peoples recommendations and trip advisor... and I was surprised this was not in it. there is a novelty Cricket Club Bar/Restaurant which is filled with signed items and cricket memorabilia from throughout the years. There is an outdoor bar area too if you don't want to sit with all the cricket items and watch replays/live action but it was a lovely place to have a drink after our walk!