I’ve said it before and I’ll say it again – here we go again!
Arrived in the (very) early hours, and felt the heat the moment we left the plane. And the humidity.
Cab to the hotel, to discover that our room won’t actually be available till early afternoon, so we camped out in the lobby for a few hours shuteye.
Mid-morning, we ventured out for the first time, and within half an hour had been amiably scammed, by a charming chap who took us on a tuk-tuk ride to his mate’s phone shop so we could get sims, then back again, before leaving us with the tuk tuk bill – a what-we-now-know-to-be-outrageous 3,000 (£7.50…in truth it I suspect should have been a third that, if that), having also relieved us of another 500 for his kindness. Ah well, you live and learn! And if you have to learn (as we subsequently learned) that as tourists, getting scammed is a Colombo tradition, it was at least a reasonably cheap way to learn to be a bit more on our guard, and not quite so nebbishly trusting.
Having nevertheless succeeded at our one ‘must’ for today, we followed up by tumbling around a bit in our dazed, semi-jet-lagged, half-awake state, before returning to the hotel for a couple more hours’ kip in the lobby till our room was ready.
After a few hours basically drowsing away the heat of the day, we headed down to the Port Beach – a long walk through a scrappy, bare, very much under construction landscape, to find ourselves at a really pleasant sea front ‘food court’ – a collection of tables surrounded by a dozen or so fast food shacks of various kinds. We ended up having a couple of plates of kottu – shredded flatbread, fried and mixed with stuff various. V had a chicken, small; I chose a crab, large, being hungry. YeGods! I don’t think I’ve ever seen so much food on a single platter. Put it this way,V’s chicken small would have done both of us. The picure shows what’s left of my crab version after I’d finished. I honestly couldn’t have eaten another scrap.
All while watching local families enjoy the sea and sun.
First impressions? Colombo is inescapably reminiscient of other Asia cities we’ve visited – the heat, the humidity, the hustle-bustle – but small by comparison, and rather less frenetic, without the mad profusion and overwhelming buzz you get in a place like Saigon. And there is, judging by the guide book and our halting explorations thus far, not that much by way of landmarks. Pleasant, then, but gentle and friendly, rather than big, brash and a tad overwhelming, like a Kuala Lumpur or a Bangkok. But the main impression is of a really nice place to be – happy vibes, nice people.
Speaking of which, suddenly remembered a wee breakfast drama. We’d gone, as recommended by the people at the hotel, to a local locals’ restaurant, for breakfast. I somehow managed to drop one of the cookie-looking savouries we’d bought, and it fell to the floor, then rolled a fine comical ten feet across it before wobbling to a halt. I pursued and snagged it, and it seemed fine so I returned it to my plate. A minute later, after we’d sat down, somebody came over, removed the runaway, and replaced it with a fresh one. Too kind!