Colombo isn’t high on most peoples to do list (including the Foreign Office!) but it seemed a pity not to visit and see what it’s all about, so we decided to spend our last couple of days in Sri flashpacking at the Galle Face Hotel and exploring the City – or at least those parts that interest us. We are very good at quickly settling into a pattern or routine – in this case we spent each morning in a flurry of tuk tuks, flitting from shop to shop – varying from the high brow upmarket interior design shops such a Raux Brothers Antiques, the Gallery, Paradise Road and Odel to the less than fabulous “House of Fashion”. We had heard a lot about the latter. Sri Lanka manufactures lots of clothes for the west – M&S, Next, Diesel, Armani etc – and we were promised that a lot of ends of lines end up at the House of Fashion. We saw lots of ends of line – none of which we recognised! Our afternoons were spent lounging by the hotel pool overlooking the Indian Ocean. Throw in lunches at Gallery café, treatments at the Spa, dinner at the cricket club, coffee and pastries in chi chi little cafes – all in all a perfect three night “mini-break”.
The city does have some highlights – Galle Face Green is a great promenade spot at sunset – accompanied at every turn by the army. We walked into the Fort Area – which was sadly well fortified by the army. Cargill’s was the most amazing dept store ever – it was obviously the Harrods of its day during the height of the British “occupation” but now is a sad and dusty reminder of how this city has been unable to move on. No tourists visit – there is not enough stock in there to attract the locals who are queuing up outside to get into the heavily fortified Ministry of Foreign Affairs just down the road. The shop fittings were like something from the set of “Are You Being Served” and we expected John Inman to pop out to check “if we were free” at every turn.
For two days the hotel has been wedding central – sometimes as many as 6 couples being photographed around the hotel grounds, in their red and gold outfits (including the men). This culminated one evening in an Anglo-Sri Lankan wedding, the British women fat, drunk, raucous and in saris, the Sri Lankan’s demure and baffled. We enjoyed observing from the Veranda Bar eating prawns and chips and glugging expensive gin.
The city itself is vast – it starts from the fort area and stretches 12kms along the sweeping coastline. The backbone of the city is the Galle Road which was the road we travelled the day we arrived as it eventually finishes at Galle on the South Coast and runs straight through Hikkaduwa.
It’s a city of tuk tuks, huge NGO and UN vehicles – there are still thousands of Westerner’s making money out of the Tsunami it seems. We remember frangipani trees, a grid system of roads with tropical bungalows behind high white walls, open park spaces and a very pleasant city, military presence notwithstanding. But there is one thing missing – there is no building works at all – and unlike every other major city in the world – even London in these straightened times, not one crane is to be seen – spooky by their absence.
As our Sri Lankan trip draws to a close, our overriding memory has been of warm evenings, huge variety of amazing scenery, interminable road journeys, tea, tea and more tea, the army, expensive booze and genuinely gentle and friendly people always with a ready smile. We have enjoyed it immensely.
The city does have some highlights – Galle Face Green is a great promenade spot at sunset – accompanied at every turn by the army. We walked into the Fort Area – which was sadly well fortified by the army. Cargill’s was the most amazing dept store ever – it was obviously the Harrods of its day during the height of the British “occupation” but now is a sad and dusty reminder of how this city has been unable to move on. No tourists visit – there is not enough stock in there to attract the locals who are queuing up outside to get into the heavily fortified Ministry of Foreign Affairs just down the road. The shop fittings were like something from the set of “Are You Being Served” and we expected John Inman to pop out to check “if we were free” at every turn.
For two days the hotel has been wedding central – sometimes as many as 6 couples being photographed around the hotel grounds, in their red and gold outfits (including the men). This culminated one evening in an Anglo-Sri Lankan wedding, the British women fat, drunk, raucous and in saris, the Sri Lankan’s demure and baffled. We enjoyed observing from the Veranda Bar eating prawns and chips and glugging expensive gin.
The city itself is vast – it starts from the fort area and stretches 12kms along the sweeping coastline. The backbone of the city is the Galle Road which was the road we travelled the day we arrived as it eventually finishes at Galle on the South Coast and runs straight through Hikkaduwa.
It’s a city of tuk tuks, huge NGO and UN vehicles – there are still thousands of Westerner’s making money out of the Tsunami it seems. We remember frangipani trees, a grid system of roads with tropical bungalows behind high white walls, open park spaces and a very pleasant city, military presence notwithstanding. But there is one thing missing – there is no building works at all – and unlike every other major city in the world – even London in these straightened times, not one crane is to be seen – spooky by their absence.
As our Sri Lankan trip draws to a close, our overriding memory has been of warm evenings, huge variety of amazing scenery, interminable road journeys, tea, tea and more tea, the army, expensive booze and genuinely gentle and friendly people always with a ready smile. We have enjoyed it immensely.
