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Published: September 21st 2017
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Day 14: Sunday 17 September - Colombo After breakfast, we began our journey back to Colombo. Our guide, Fernando showed us many, many buildings that were destroyed by the Tsunami and have never been rebuilt.
We saw a Japanese-style Buddha which the Japanese built as a memorial. We also saw another memorial on the beach side with its concrete carved mural depicting the tsunami tragedy. This was where 100s of villages crowded in the train thinking that his would be a safe place. Most were washed out to sea and drowned.
The whole experience of seeing these memorials was very moving and surrreal, and hard to imagine what it was like. I hope I never find out.
After, we continue to Colombo. On arrival, we embark on a city tour of Colombo. We explored the Fort district, the historic centre of the city as Sue and Dave had not seen this area as we had on our arrival in Sri Lanka. We also wander through Pettah Market which was where we were
caught by a short shower of rain.
We then visited the Dutch Church of Wolfendhall dating back to 1749, a Methodist church.
Next was the Kelaniya Buddhist Temple, a major pilgrimage site for Buddhist devotees. There were 100s of children, all dressed in white, attending Buddha school as it was Sunday. It was a very busy place. We saw a large reclining Buddha along with the beautiful muralled walls which all told the story and history of Buddha in Sri Lanka. Our guide, Fernando loved telling the history of his country. He was very proud of the stories.
We also stopped at Independent Square (which was our second time) before visiting the Colombo Natural History museum before proceeding to your hotel for check-in. Visiting the Museum at the end of our tour was an excellent idea as it bought all the history that Fernando had taught us, all together. We had also seen many of the towns of the Ancient Kingdoms so it was more meaningful to us. The Museum was stacked with alfresco, archaeological structures, and all materials
used by the early inhabitants.
We then booked into our hotel on Galle Road and said our goodbyes to Fernando. He had been an excellent guide and could not do more for us.
That evening, the 4 of us walked down the beach before coming back to Galle Road to find a restaurant for dinner. We found the lovely Sapphire Hotel which had a restaurant that served Indian, Sri Lankan and Chinese food. Tom and I had a very tasty ginger chicken with naan bread and all the chutneys and spiced to accompany the dish. It was a lovely last dinner with our new travel friends, even though Sue was trying to recover from an illness.
The next day we were flying across to Chennai in southern India after saying goodbye to our excellent new travel companions, Sue and Dave. We have had a wonderful 17 days in Sri Lanka.
Highlights of Sri Lanka ·
Friendly people who don’t hassle you ·
Hundreds of tuk-tuks ·
Lovely spicy food ·
Extensive number of Buddha Temples, stupors and dagobas (85%!a(MISSING)re Buddhist) ·
Well preserved ancient capitals of Kingdoms ·
Strong emphasis on education and revision classes for particular subjects ·
Lack of the use of car horns and very calm drivers ·
Beautiful highlands with slopes covered in tea plantations, banana and coconut palms, teak forests, with lowlands covered in vegetables, rice paddies and some buffalo grazing ·
Extensive influence from Portuguese, Dutch and British who ruled the country ·
Financial assistance from Japanese and Chinese ·
The relative cheapness of travelling through the country ·
Lovely hot, humid climate
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