Our transfer at Mumbai airport was smooth and trouble-free. We had a three hour wait in the airport with nothing much to do. The highlight was going through security to get into Mumbai airport! Jet Airways came up trumps again and the flight left on time. No entertainment on this flight though, but on a flight lasting just over two-and-half hours that was only to be expected. We arrived in Colombo ahead of schedule and after completing the usual formalities – immigration cards and passport checks where we almost found ourselves with 30 day stamps in our passports rather than the 90 days we had applied for before leaving London – we headed for the fixed rate taxi stands which line the second arrivals hall. Needless to say, Andy found it hard to keep his cool during the inevitable negotiations but eventually we managed to get a reasonable price for the 45-minute journey to our homestay in the Mount Lavinia area of Colombo arriving at 7am local time.
Initial impressions of Colombo, mainly gained from the long drive down Galle Road which runs from the centre of the city south down the coast, is of a not particularly attractive city of rather higgledy-piggedly, unkempt single story shops with run down fascia boards unfettered by planning regulations. But off the main road there is a network of surprisingly peaceful and attractive residential side streets lush with palms and flowering trees.
Mount Lavinia, we discover, is the main holiday suburb of Colombo and the Mount Lavinia Homestay is only a few minutes walk from beach! The homestay must be one of the cheapest in Colombo, but is perfectly adequate and we have a large room and there is a pretty front garden.
After taking a nap for a few hours we make our way into Colombo centre which is 30 minutes away by the bus that leaves every few minutes from the top of the road. Of course, as soon as we get off the bus at the central railway station we have a tut-tut driver on our case and we are easily talked into an hour’s orientation tour of the sights of Colombo. Four hours later we’ve seen all the mainsights and had a delicious marsala dhosa in a back street cafe frequented by locals and serving food without cutlery. We have one happy tut-tut driver who probably can’t believe his luck as having found such a good fare and we are left wondering what we are going to do for the next two days!
Our tour has included, in no particular order: South Beira Lake, the seafront at
Galle Face Green, the white-domed Old Town Hall (also known as White House due to the similarity with the slightly better-known building of the same name), Viharamahadevi Park (previously Victoria Park), the up-market suburb of Cinnamon Gardens, the National Museum (outside only) and Independance Hall.
We stop at South Beira Lake, a pleasant oasis in the centre of the city, to visit the Seema Malakaya Meditation Centre with its gloriously cool central pavilion which catches the breeze off the lake and two side pavilions one filled with Thai bronze buddhas and the other home to a small stupa and two shrines to Hindu gods (Sri Lankans are nothing if not pragmatic).
Close by is the Gangaramaya Hindu Temple with its resident elephant sadly chained all dayan extensive museum much of which amounted to a jumble of bric-a-brac with some wonderful hidden gems such as the carved ivory tusks competing with commemorate plate marking Charles and Diana’s wedding! The most impressive, though is the Kovil with its colourful exterior festooned with painted sculptures of the gods towering skywards.
Our tour is punctuated by lunch in a small back street restaurant, clearly a favourite with locals but probably rarely, if ever, frequented by tourists. We receive a friendly welcome and with no menu we accept the offer of two marsala dhosas (delicious) and some rather stodgy cake-like accompaniments (not so great) all to be eaten without cutlery.
In the late we take a short stroll from our guest house across the railway tracks and onto the beach which lies just beyond. The long, sandy beach of Mount Lavinia is crowded with holidaymakers playing cricket, frolicing in the sea mostly fully clothed or just promenading. The beach here is lined with small bars and restaurants and every so often a train gently clatters by behind them somehow adding, rather than detracting, from this essentially laid back, local holiday resort.