Back to Sri Lanka... Again

October 24 2012

Ron and I went to bed on Tuesday ready for our departure for Sri Lanka. Ron set the phone alarm to go off at 5:45 but for reassurance I called the front desk and asked for a wake up call at 5:45. The call came and we hopped out of bed from a deep slumber. We showered and dressed and as Ron put on his watch he noted the time was 5:10. Our call had come at 4:45 not 5:45! We were wide awake and dressed so no need to head back to bed. We ate a light breakfast at the lovely Bangkok airport, one of the nicest we have traveled through. Our flight on Sri Lankan Air was good: we had plenty of leg room, it was a short three hour flight and the food was much better than United’s international flight. We were met by Kelum, a former driver for the Asia Foundation with whom Ron worked when we lived here. We checked into our hotel and went to lunch at a nearby food court that has a great veggie Indian restaurant. We ate a masala dosai and loved it. Then we headed to Ajith’s, my favorite jeweler, where I ordered some pendants then onto the Asia Foundation to see old friends. We went back to the hotel and rested then went out to dinner with another friend that Ron had worked with. We dined alfresco at a great Italian place. Back to the hotel to bed as we were tired from our early rise in Bangkok.

October 25

We had a great breakfast in our hotel. The hotel is quite new and very sophisticated in design. The rooms are concrete: floors, walls, bed platform, bedside tables, built in desk, sink stand, and shower stall. It may sound weird but the work is beautifully done: stained concrete and all the edges are rounded like bull nose tile. Our former driver, Mr. Kularathna picked us up promptly at 10:00 and we headed to Barefoot, my favorite place to shop. I got new cloth napkins, a table cloth for the outdoor farmer’s table Ron built this summer, a few clothes and two ceramic plates. We went to another store to get some excellent Sri Lankan tea then headed over to the Asia Foundation to give friends gifts before a luncheon at a nearby restaurant. Unfortunately, many people who had been invited were not able to come as it is a big four day holiday weekend.

Afterwards we took a trip down memory lane and rode over to Thimbriagasyaya, the street where we lived in 2005-06. They are widening the street and it was amazing to see the changes. Speaking of changes we have been surprised at many positive changes since our last visit in January 2011. The city is considerably cleaner than before, there is a lot of remodeling of older colonial buildings that are quite beautiful, the roads appear to be in better shape and new roads are being built or have been completed to improve traffic from the airport and to Galle, another major city here.

October 26

I got up at 2:00 a.m. to go to the airport to welcome James Wall, a friend of mine since grade school. About a year ago James and his two brothers-in-love made a very generous donation to Shilpa Children’s Home in Colombo in honor of James deceased wife, Heloise. I had volunteered at Shilpa when we lived here. When James expressed an interest in traveling with us to Thailand I suggested we also come here so Shilpa could thank him for what he and his family had done for them. So James arrived and we agreed that we would meet at 2:00 p.m. so he could sleep in. I managed to go back to sleep around 6 and got up at 7:15. Sleep has been elusive since I have been in SE Asia. We had a great day seeing a Buddhist temple, another temple on Beira Lake (literally on the lake) designed by Sri Lanka’s well known architect, Geoffrey Bawa. Afterwards we walked along the Indian Ocean at Galle Face Green before coming back to our hotel and getting refreshed before going out to dinner with Veena Durgabakshi, our former landlord. Veena brought her brother, his wife and charming two daughters who have grown so much since we last saw them in January 2011. We ate a wonderful Sri Lankan dinner with many different dishes.

October 27

Today we did some touring of Pettah, the heart of old town where the market thrives. Because today was a Muslim holiday there wasn't a lot of activity. We visited a mosque that was built in 1908 and is being expanded to more than double its size. Now that the civil war has ended we suspect that a lot of pent up development is occurring. Next we visited a Hindu temple and there was a lot of activity here. We removed our shoes once we were inside the temple grounds. I realized what a tender foot I was. 

From here we went to the Dutch Hospital. Sri Lanka was invaded and ruled about 150 years each by the Portuguese, then the Dutch and lastly the Brits. The hospital has been redeveloped into a very upscale area of shops and restaurants. There was an outlet of our favorite store Barefoot so we popped in and picked up a few gifts. Then we ventured into Colombo 07. This area is graced with colonial mansions, tree lined streets and more redevelopment. We visited the Independence monument and the former race course where there were horse races back in the day of British rule.

Next stop was lunch at Barefoot and some serious shopping for James. He found some great hand loomed fabric to recover some chairs, shirts, silk scarves, etc. We picked up the table cloth we had hemmed from fabric we had purchased earlier in the week and Ron found a great bathrobe. All cloth items at Barefoot are hand loomed, hand dyed and hand made. We walked through the art gallery there then headed over to Paradise Rd which sells household items such as ceramics, table linens and the like. James found a few more items then we headed back to the hotel as jet lag had caught up with James. We headed over the Odel’s, Sri Lanka’s sole department store in hopes of finding winter jackets. Neither of us found anything that appealed to us. Many manufactures have clothes made here then shipped overseas so you can get a bargain if you can find what you want. The only place in Sri Lanka that anyone would wear a jacket is in the high country.