Blogs from Galle, Southern Province, Sri Lanka, Asia - page 6

25 June No more Sri Lankan army wake up calls, just the monkeys as usual! For the past few days I have been at the pool with the Sri Lankan coaches and Dharmadasa! The coaches are really nice guys and so interested to learn new things, we are getting pretty good at broken English and Sinhala. They are amazed that my teaching is quite relaxed and fun for both teacher and students. The way they have been taught is very rigid and repetitious, so I think they are relieved to add some spontaneity to their classes. Today Sumit excelled and ran his classes in a very relaxed style! I told him he was doing a great job and his smile was enough thanks! I am still a novelty for most of the kids coming in for ... read more

We arrived in Galle, and got a tuk tuk round Fort to Khalid’s guest house. We had to direct the driver, and felt on familiar territory especially as the 3 wheeler turned into the fort, and swung right up past the ramparts. The calm solidity of the metres thick wall, with the sea rushing pointlessly against it was both beautiful and instantly reminiscent of happy times. Eventually the sea with its insistent movement will win the battle, but for now that is hard to believe and these walls will endure for centuries yet. Within the walls every building has its merits, from the atmospheric Anura’s Restaurant where we ate, remembering a similar feeling creperie in Pas de Calais, to the splendid empty 3 storey YMCA building on the end of Pedlar Street, with rooms on the ... read more

Friday 17th April After breakfast we took a tuk tuk to Galle Fort and Khalids Guest House. Chatwin would approve of this place, plain white walls, dark floor boards and ceilings, it is calm and simple except the noise of the ice cream vendors outside. With Nick and the boys settling in the rooms I wandered. At the train station I established I could neither reserve seats nor buy tickets in advance. Walking back past the cricket ground I was ushered in to see the ground by the security. Can you imagine that happening at Lords? As I left I wandered up to the walls of the Fort, and bumped into a group of youngsters off to find somewhere to play cricket. They urged me to join them, but I resisted, instead continuing clockwise around the ... read more

Woke at 5.30am! Roy still not too good. At 6.30 I was sitting out on the balcony, waving good morning to our very efficient and very cheery pool boy. It was quiet everywhere so I went downstairs to take some early morning photos of the pool and beach. At about 7.30am we went for breakfast and by 9.30am we were in place on our sunbeds! I went for a swim in the sea, it was lovely - very warm. Roy walked down with me and to his disgruntlement whilst I had a dip Chandika came along to talk to him about us taking a tour with him! The more I could see him getting irritated by this, the longer I decided to stay in the sea. Evil :-) Late morning I had a swim in the ... read more

Woke at 6, which was not my plan! Listened to music, watched the ocean and just generally lazed around until 8.30am. Last night, Aminda showed us the "best room" in the hotel - a suite called the Residence. It was huge, with a fibre optic lit private pool hanging over the gardens and sea. It had a giant jacuzzi and huge Smeg fridge. He didn't tell us the room rate! We like our room though. It has a huge bed, CD/DVD player, bose sound system, plasma screen tv and an ipod, loaded with 6000+ songs. We've got it on shuffle and were jigging around to Bhangra or something like that first thing. There is a library with dvds and books to borrow. Breakfast was a buffet - first time we encountered this. But what a spread! ... read more