Watching the world roll by…
This morning, we pulled back the curtains to see the dockside of Columbo, on the south west corner of SL. Unlike most other towns in Asia, Columbo is still very ‘low rise’, although they are working to put that right; ‘The Chinese are investing in a huge new land reclamation project…’. The Chinese were obviously keeping an eye on their investment; a largish warship was moored a few piers away, with a few small guns and a lot of very large ariels and radar domes.
In the meantime, a lot of the old waterfront still exists, dating back to the early 1900’s but now in an advanced state of decay. Our trip this morning was a walking tour of the old city, starting at 8.00am, which meant the alarm set for 6.15am! This is set to become an unfortunate pattern.
We’re having mixed feelings about these group excursions. Some folks on the boat, especially the Canadians and Aussies, have clearly done a lot of homework in advance and as soon as the boat docks, there off and doing their own thing, at a fraction of the cost. One couple had hired a car at Hambantota and made heir own way to Columbo! On the other hand, we have no idea how these places work, the guides are uniformly excellent and intelligent and the big ‘win’ is that the ship won’t ever leave without you if you’re on one of their trips! The biggest issue is being herded around with other people. I’d prepared a proposal for the entertainments manager that places on the shore parties should be allocated according to physical – and certainly mental – capability but S refused to let me submit it.
Be that as it may, we enjoyed our tour of the city. There were no signs of people living on the streets, it was much cleaner than India and the market areas were genteel by Delhi standards. We moved on to the old colonial area; it was known as ‘the fort’ although the fort itself had been demolished at the end of the 1800’s to make room for the commercial buildings.
One of our Aussie companions had some things to say about this interesting piece of information:
“What’s the bloody point in telling us to look at something that isn’t there any more? So there was a fort here a hundred years ago but it’s not here now? So what? There was probably a dinosaur here a million years ago as well, but I can’t bloody well see that either!”
It really is difficult not to love the Aussies.
Mostly of British heritage, the area had all been closed off during the civil war and allowed to fall into ruin. Attempts were now being made to restore it – with the work mainly being done by the army. As our guide put it; “ We have to have the army hereabouts in case of terrorist attack, so we might as well have them doing something useful!’ She also made the highly pertinent remark that the also helped the soldiers learn a really useful trade for when they left the army, as the last thing SL needed was a load of unemployed trained killers!
We spent the afternoon lazing on the boat – and worrying about food as were due ashore for and event in the evening. Given the early start to the day, we thought it wise to really stock up on breakfast, as we didn’t know how long we might be out. In the event, we were back in time for a late lunch – and another debate about light lunch but early dinner, or full lunch and then light dinner before going out. S saw that burgers were on offer at lunch time and that decided things – it was a very big lunch, with wine….
We had to be ashore at 6.45pm. S remembered that we had to take our malaria tablets at about 6.00pm, and this needed to be with food. So we got ready and went down for a light snack – but there was an enticing range of curries on offer, and so we though we ought….
Then it was short coach ride in monsoon rain (and very hot and humid temperatures) to the Shangri La hotel for an evening of SL cultural music and dance. When we got there, they had laid on a huge buffet with drinks for us, and it would have been very rude not to…
The ‘cultural evening’ was OK-ish. Some of the dancing was spectacular, especially a closing number fusing ancient Sri Lankan dancing with some very current music – but some bloke who was SL’s answer to Des O’Conner was dreadful.
Anyway, eventually it ended and it was back to the ship – where a late-night drinks reception with a meal awaited us!
“Oh my God” said S. “This is obscene. I simply cannot eat or drink another thing; I’m going to explode!”
And with that, she grabbed a glass of Prosecco, a couple of plates and a shovel and waddled off to the array of puddings…