Negombo

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Cold shower again tonight, good job this cold is not like Lancashire cold water. Other than that the Silva's Beach Hotel is very nice and the staff extremely friendly. I was struggling to get a Wifi signal and they let me sit in their office alone to send the blog at 10pm. Always smiling with a little shake of the head. We followed the coast around the southern tip and up to Colombo on the 3 month old motorway then on to Negombo, near the airport for our return tomorrow night. We stopped at Galle, which along with many other coastal towns was badly affected by the tsunami of 2006 and has had a lot of rebuilding done. It reminded me if a French Colonial town with its yellow buildings and shuttered windows but find it was the Dutch who created the walled fortress town by the sea which is a fishing port and has some quite large vessels sailing in and out if the harbour. We had lunch at the Indian Diner which took two hours. The of us were the first in by 1/2 hour and were the last served, abysmal service but good food. The coastline is full of small fishing boats with a float hanging off to one side like a Tri Marin with one beam missing. The fishermen squatting on sticks out in the sea with a line were also quite interesting. We stopped for a photo and one guy jumped off demanding money for the photo so I am not sure if they were genuine fishermen,or not. He approached me for money, a good 100 yds away with no camera and I offered him 40 rupees, as advised by our driver, but he demanded 200 and would not negotiate, so he got nothing as our van sped off. On route was a balsa-wood mask museum, which were used in traditional dances and plays. Even in Balsa a bit heavy and would give you neck ache. An interesting gift shop with objects carved in the workshop below. Masks, mannequins,puppets,TukTuks,snakes,elephants etc. All a must for the man who has everything but an elephant.

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