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Published: February 22nd 2018
HE SAID... Today we were travelling south-west from Kandy to
Colombo.
We woke early (5:30am), as we had a reasonably early start on the final leg of our Sri Lankan travels – we were leaving Kandy and heading back to Colombo. We organised our packs, walked a short distance along an old wood panelled corridor and found ourselves in Hotel Suisse’s sprawling breakfast area. I sat down to cornflakes, poached eggs, toast, jam, fruit juice and tea before checking out of our lakeside hotel. We jumped into our minibus and drove a short distance to Arthur’s Seat, which offers great panoramic views of Kandy and Kandy Lake.
After taking our last few photographs of Kandy, we jumped back into the minibus and headed to Silk Gardens (a textile and garment factory outlet), where we quickly browsed some uninspiring clothing before continuing on our journey to Colombo. We crossed the ubiquitous Mahaweli River (Kandy’s western boundary) and made our way to Giragama Estate, a tea factory on the city’s outskirts. We arrived mid-morning, and the sun seared down upon us as we ambled through the tea fields. It was a relief to get inside the factory, where we observed the
tea making process before sampling some refreshing orange pekoe tea with
jaggery (Sri Lankan palm sugar) and lemon crisp biscuits.
We left the tea factory and wound our way down from the hill country, descending from 600 metres to 200 above sea level in 30 minutes. On the way we passed an old section of the road to Colombo, where cars and buses drove under a huge rock which towered over the road. Ren could remember travelling the road as a child, where buses would have to make a multi-point turn to navigate the corner and then turn underneath the colossal rock.
We approached the outskirts of Colombo’s crowded and congested roadways at 1pm, and the traffic chaos began. It was an agonisingly slow, stop-start trip into the heart of Colombo, but we eventually arrived at Bread Talk for lunch about an hour later. We picked up a fiery
lamprais (‘packet’ of rice, chicken,
seeni sambol (caramalised onion relish),
blachan (fried shrimp and onions),
brinjal moju (fried eggplant pickle) and Sri Lankan cutlets (spicy fish croquettes) wrapped and cooked in a banana leaf) which we shared, two pan rolls (filled and rolled up crepes, that are crumbed and
fried), two patties and a couple of iced teas, then carried our banquet on a large plastic tray to the restaurant’s upstairs dining area. The
lamprais was fantastic, which was a surprise for a chain bakery. The pan rolls were also incredible. It had been a long trip from Kandy, and this selection of snacks really hit the spot – it was just what we needed to restore our energy.
We finished lunch in the mid-afternoon and walked to our minibus, which was only parked a short distance away (in front of the Old Town Hall and Viharamahadevi Park). We jumped in and headed off on a quick city tour. We drove to the Independence Memorial Hall, pulled into the carpark of the Bandaranaike Memorial International Conference Hall, parked outside the Sinhalese Sports Club and then drove to the bustling Pettah Bazaar for a city walk. The narrow streets and market lanes of the bazaar were crammed, and navigating the masses of people was a task to behold. We slowly made our way to the Jami-Ul-Alfar Mosque (or Red Mosque as it is colloquially known), and then circled back to our starting point.
We jumped back into our
minibus and headed down Galle Road towards Park Grand Hotel – our final resting point in Sri Lanka. We checked in and settled into our cigarette-stenched room on the fourth floor, which was otherwise comfortable and clean. We headed up to the hotel’s rooftop bar in the early evening for a few pre-dinner drinks as we gazed over Colombo’s industrious skyline.
We made our way to Upali’s at Nawaloka for dinner. We were shown to a private room where we shared a Sri Lankan Tasting Plate, which comprised red and white
string hoppers (steamed vermicelli-like rice noodles), egg and plain
hoppers (thin crispy rice flour and coconut crepes cooked in a mini-wok, with or without an egg in the centre), roast
paan (rustic village bread),
chicken kottu roti (roti chopped up and stir fried with eggs and vegetables), chicken curry, white fish curry,
dahl (lentil curry),
pol sambol (shredded coconut with onions, chilli and lime), and mango chutney. The meal was exceptional, as was the company.
We then headed back to our hotel via Cargills Food City, where we stopped momentarily for a small tub of refreshing ice cream. On arriving back at the hotel, we made our
way straight to the rooftop bar, where we sipped beer, red wine and arrack until midnight. A few fellow travellers were leaving early the next day, so we said goodbye and retreated to our room. We had the following day in Colombo to prepare for our return journey to Australia via Singapore, so we needed to sleep.
We woke late the next morning and took our time, as we had the whole day to prepare for our 1am flight to Singapore. We eventually headed down to breakfast, where I enjoyed sultana bran, sago pudding and treacle,
egg hoppers, passionfruit juice and tea. We pottered in our room after breakfast before heading out in the late morning to pick up a few last minute gifts at Barefoot. We found an exquisite ring for Ren, as well as some beautiful earrings and scarves for our mums back in Australia.
We met travel companion Damien for lunch in the Barefoot Garden Cafe a little after midday, where we all shared a black pork curry and a trio of dips (hummus, babaganoush and tapenade). We all cooled down with a very refreshing iced tea. The food was fantastic, albeit a little small
in portion size. We then made our way back to the hotel, where we bid Damien a sad farewell after a month of travel and adventures with him around Sri Lanka.
Having said our goodbyes, we ventured along Galle Road to the nearest postal agency, as I needed to post a few postcards. We’d been told the agency was in a market, but we had no idea what ‘type’ of market. The afternoon sun was beating down upon us, and our energy levels were sapped… so it was a shock to the system to find ourselves in a fish and meat market without air-conditioning. The postal agency was in a tiny office upstairs, so we struggled up the steps with the smell of rancid fish infiltrating our nostrils and the humid air taking our breath. Stamps, we discovered, were 25 rupees each, and the friendly postal staff told us we only needed one per postcard. It didn’t matter where in the world our postcards were destined – they only needed a single 25 rupee stamp to get there. Unconvinced, we purchased our stamps, walked to a nearby table and used a small slimy stick to cover them in glue
before pasting them to the postcards. By this stage the heat and smell from the market below had become overbearing, so we couldn’t stay a minute longer. We left in hope that someday, in the not too distant future, the postcards would reach their intended destinations…
While we were happy to have escaped the debilitating atmosphere of the fish and meat market, we couldn’t help but feel for the postal staff that had to work in the tiny agency above the bustling city market. We walked a short distance along Galle Road to the very tranquil (and very air-conditioned) M.D. Gunasena Bookshop, where we picked up a copy of Michael Ondaatje’s novel Anil’s Ghost, which had been highly recommended by a number of sources. Back out on Galle Road, Colombo’s mid-afternoon heat showed no sign of abating, so we made our way back to the hotel and bunkered down in our room to catch up on our travel writing and prepare for our 1am flight to Singapore.
SHE SAID... We woke early, as we had a relatively early start for our drive from Kandy to
Colombo. We packed, left our bags outside our room and headed
off for breakfast. The breakfast at Hotel Suisse was extensive, and the beautiful dining room added to the sense that I would have loved to spend a couple of hours grazing on everything. Unfortunately, we were in a rush. There were lines for every cooking station, so I had to limit myself to the buffet options. I had fried noodles (a classic Sri Lankan Chinese dish), which I have really started enjoying for breakfast, with
pol sambol (shredded coconut with onions, chilli and lime),
dahl (lentil curry) and chicken curry.
We left the hotel at 8am and stopped one last time at my favourite lookout over Kandy – Arthur’s Seat. It has a 180 degree panoramic view of the big white Buddha on an adjacent hill, the city centre, Kandy Lake and the Temple of the Tooth.
By popular request of the group, we stopped at a textile and garment factory outlet on the outskirts of Kandy. Sri Lanka hosts the factories of quite a few international fashion brands, and as a result, there are many seconds and sample sales. A gaggle of shop staff were waiting for us at the entrance, and they followed our every step.
While I found quite a few items from brands I like, I wasn’t sure about the quality, and we really don't enjoy shopping while being stalked and hassled – so we didn't buy anything.
Our next stop was at a tea factory called Giragama in
Kadugannawa. We walked into the surrounding tea plantation, where Bala (our group leader) began explaining the process of growing tea. However, none of us could relax and enjoy the experience, as two women followed us and insistently asked for money. They were so unrelenting and in our faces (deliberately blocking photos being taken, and standing between Bala and us etc.) that we abandoned the walk through the tea plantation. I understand that many of the tea picking families live in difficult circumstances, and they see tourists as a source of income. However, over the years we have taken a position of giving a donation to grassroots charities in the countries we travel in (instead of giving bits and pieces to beggars). These two women had been conditioned by the many tourists who give to beggars, which very much exacerbates the problem for all tourists who follow. 😞
We walked back to the factory
and Bala gave us a tour of the production process – starting from when the picked green leaves are withered, to the cutting and fermenting processes, and finally to the all-important stage of sorting the black tea. It ranges from broken orange pekoe (BOP, the larger leaves sold as loose leaf for brewed tea) on one end of the scale, to tea dust (the finest particles of tea leaf that the sieves separate out first, for tea bags) on the other.
From what I’ve gathered from our visits to tea estates in multiple Asian countries, the methods used in growing and processing tea leaves haven’t changed in centuries. Even though newer methods are starting to be used in some factories in Sri Lanka, most factories still use the same methods and machinery that were introduced by the British.
We then experienced a lovely tasting of black BOP tea with
jaggery (Sri Lankan palm sugar). Bala also bought us a packet of lemon puff biscuits (my favourite Sri Lankan biscuit) which went down well with that cup of tea. We were tempted to buy some tea, but we were already carrying packages of tea from my Grandpa Roman's old
factory (which we visited a few weeks ago in Bogawantalawa), so we decided against it.
The rest of the drive to Colombo was along very busy roads and through busy towns. The rural belts didn’t go for very long, and the greenery of coconut trees, rubber plantations and cinnamon farms were often punctuated with roadside stalls, villages and many unfinished buildings that seemed to be plonked down in random spots along the road.
We drove through the Kadugannawa Pass that sits between the Kandy and Kegalle valleys. The iconic old rock tunnel on a hairpin bend (that I remembered from my childhood) has been bypassed by a new road that goes around it. The rock tunnel was a lovely quirk of the old road, but not the safest engineering choice…I remember that big buses had to do a two point turn on the hairpin bend to get through the tunnel. A quick stop further down the road gave us a beautiful outlook over Kegalle Valley, with Bible Rock in the distance.
We also stopped for a break at a row of roadside stalls which sold Sri Lankan
thambili (orange king coconuts that are predominantly used for their
natural electrolyte heavy water) and Sri Lankan red bananas, but it was too soon after breakfast and our tea stop, so we didn't buy either. I napped for the rest of the trip and woke when we hit Colombo traffic at about 1pm.
We had mentioned to Bala that we were yet to taste good
lamprais on our trip. It’s a Dutch colonial spin on a ‘packet’ of rice and curry that’s wrapped in banana leaves and steamed. The ‘packet’ typically contains rice cooked in stock, a meat curry,
brinjal moju (fried eggplant pickle), Sri Lankan cutlets (spicy fish croquettes),
blachan (a spicy shrimp paste),
seeni sambol (caramalised onion relish) and fried ash plantain. So we stopped in Colombo 2 for
lamphrais at Bread Talk, a chain bakery that had far better
lamphrais than at the Dutch Burgher Union we’d specifically visited for this dish! We also bought some
short eats (an umbrella term for Sri Lankan fried or baked snacks) – vegetarian and chicken pan rolls (filled and rolled up crepes, that are crumbed and fried), and chicken and fish patties. However, our eyes had been way bigger than our tummies, so we had to get the patties
as takeaway.
After lunch we headed out for a walking tour in the Pettah district. We had done this before, but not surprisingly, Bala led this tour with much more gusto, and we also visited areas that sold fresh produce and dry rations, which were very interesting. There was far less foot traffic in the little lanes than our previous visit, but there were far more lorries with sacks upon sacks of produce, and men with push carts moving the sacks around. It ended up being as hectic and frenetic as before, but I enjoyed the walk far more this time. I had been so much more overwhelmed the last time that I hadn’t even noticed the impressive Khan Clock Tower in the middle of the large roundabout near the market. All road distances in Colombo are measured from this clock tower.
We checked into our final hotel in Sri Lanka – the Pearl Grand in Colombo 3. It was well located for what we wanted to do on our last two days in Colombo. However, the fact that the hotel allowed smoking on the balconies of rooms made for a room with traces of stale smoke on
everything. So gross.
We relaxed, napped and organised ourselves before heading to the rooftop bar for pre-dinner drinks. The Barbados rum cocktail I had was below par, but at least Andrew's Lion Beer was icy cold… getting cold beers had often been a challenge on this trip.
We had our last group meal at Upali's at Nawaloka, a place recommended by my Mum who had tried their branch in Melbourne and liked it. We had a private dining room upstairs, joined by Anil our driver and Hemantha our bus assistant. Damien, Mark, Andrew and I ordered two of the Sri Lankan Tasting Plates to share, but the waiter got confused and thought we'd ordered one each. It took a bit of to-ing and fro-ing to sort the issue out, and in the end we shared three plates. It was tasty and consisted of
paan (rustic village bread, rice), rice, both egg and plain
hoppers (thin crispy rice flour and coconut crepes cooked in a mini-wok, with or without an egg in the centre),
string hoppers (steamed vermicelli-like rice noodles),
chicken kottu roti (roti chopped up and stir fried with eggs and vegetables), chicken curry, fish curry,
dahl (lentil
curry) and
pol sambol. The food was really good, and it brought home the fact that we’d be missing meals like this very soon!
After dinner we made one last stop at Cargills Food City for some ice cream, as we’d done on every night of our second trip. 😊
Back at the hotel we said our goodbyes to Bala, Anil and Hemantha for the last time. It had been a very illuminating and educational trip around the northern and eastern parts of the country, and we were pleased that we got a local guide who was native to that part of the country and had been able to share personal insights with us. Anil and Hemantha had driven us across a vast portion of the island over our four week trip, and we were very grateful for their care and safe driving skills.
The group migrated to the rooftop bar for a sneaky couple of drinks, but before long there were hugs all round as people had to catch various flights in the early hours of the next day. Luckily, we had a whole day left in Colombo before our flight.
We slept in until
7:30am on our last morning in Sri Lanka – the latest we’d slept in on the entire trip. We had a leisurely breakfast, and I savoured my last
egg hopper and
pol sambol meal in Sri Lanka. I had seen wood apple juice in some of the hotels we’d stayed in but had never tried it, and unfortunately, I thought I'd try it this morning. To say it smelt like vomit would be kind. Needless to say, neither of us actually drank any.
After a leisurely morning pottering around our hotel room, we walked to the flagship Barefoot store (a few hundred metres from our hotel) and spent about an hour shopping for souvenirs. I like to buy a piece of jewellery from each country I visit, but I hadn’t seen any jewellery I liked until this point… this store had a whole cabinet of one-off pieces that I loved. With much difficulty, I restricted myself to just one piece – a beautiful silver ring with three tiger’s eye stones.
We met Damien for our last meal together at Barefoot Garden Cafe in the store’s lovely courtyard. We had a much needed lemon ice tea to cool down,
and shared their signature dish of black pork curry and a trio of dips with flat bread. It was all very lovely. It was sad saying goodbye to our travel buddy Damien who was returning home to Europe, but we were already playing guessing games about which country we’d meet up in next.
After lunch we continued our shopping at the Majestic City complex and a couple of other local plazas. We were on the hunt for a few books on Sri Lanka, and we finally found one – Anil's Ghost – at the M.D. Gunasena Bookshop. We also sought out a post office to buy stamps for postcards to our family, which turned out to be in a small outlet above the public market that was insanely hot and stank of raw meat. The process of buying stamps and sticking them with the provided glue stick was a test in not throwing up. With the task completed, we were so glad to be out of there and back out in fresh air. Even though the temperature outside was roasting hot, it didn’t smell of meat!
Colombo had really turned up the heat since our visit two weeks
previously. After a few hours walking around we were melted versions of ourselves, so it was pleasing to return to our air conditioned room and chill out for a few hours before preparing for our flight that night.
We had spent four weeks in Sri Lanka, and seen a good portion of the country in that time. Even though we’d had a fabulous adventure and enjoyed our time on the island, we were both more than ready for the next part of our trip – two days of total relaxation in Singapore!
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Travelphilosophy
Marco
Foooooood
Hi Ren, I always read and admire yours way of describing food and eating time, I will try to learn from you guys how to write so well and in details about your travel experiences. keep well bye bye.