First day on the beach

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It is 2:30am in the morning. I arrive 1 hour late and Rome from the Home stay is waiting to pick me up. On the journey from the airport I could tell straight away that Sri Lanka is a laid back easy going place compared to the intensity of India. I took me a while to get to sleep and I was awoken by chanters early – not from a mosque but a church. I found my ear plugs and went back to sleep until about 10am local time.

My two room mates are sisters from Belgian, both at the end of their trip, one going home and the other to Australia. I took a bus ride to the main beach of Negombo, the touristy area, did not swim as I did not have anyone to look after the contents of my pockets, one of the drawbacks of travelling alone.

I had breakfast at a retuarant and met some Americans and a British couple from Southampton. After a wonder along the beach I bumped into the Belgians and we had a few beers and walked around looking for a ruined for which we did not find and eventually got lost.

We shared an over crowded bus back to the Home Stay. On the way back we were delayed by couple of tyres which had been set fire in the middle of the road by fisherman and driver annoyed with a recent rise in tax.

We explored the area around the Home stay and stumbled across a local residential areas with fisherman, children playing in the gardens, lots of nice houses, all different mixed up with shops and restaurants, green trees and bushes between all the buildings to give a semi suburban fishing village feel that I have never experienced before. The area is bisected by canals (built by the Dutch) and lagoons.

Eventually we found a small street restaurant which consists of a few tables and an open kitchen, selling simple, cheap but tasty local food we had dinner. Every now and again there is model of Jesus Christ in at a corner with a crown of thorns and bleeding cuts, sometimes in an alcove, other times in a glass box. The Portuguese were the first invaders to introduce Christianity to Sri Lanka.

The Home stay is run by a friendly guy called Rome who is helpful and attentive, it is a house that has been converted to accommodation. Reception and lounge on the second floor overlooking the residential area.

The balcony overhang is decorated with detailed metal work. They have lion beer on sale which is a quite reseanoable lager, but quite strong, about 5.5%. The windows are interesting, there are two opening casement both glazed – then a fixed ventilation grille at the top formed of carved wooden patterns with insect mesh on the inside. I thought there would be many insects, but there are not. I have not been bitten yet.

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