Colombo Town Hall

As I opened my eyes this morning, the thunderstorms were gone and the sun was shining, almost. Lots of cloud still are spread out over the sky but that was ok, I prefer that kind of weather when doing city sightseeing. Today Colombo was on.

I started of as I usually do in new cities, by walking. I aimed for the Town Hall. It took about 30 minutes to go there, passing lots of busy streets with motorcycles, tuctuc and old Leyland buses. All over the city, I could see signs and left over’s from the Colonial time. Beside the left side traffic and the English signs there are churches, pictures of former Queen Victoria and, in my hotel, the first Car of Prince Philip.

Mosque

Queen Victoria founded a garden here, and I thought it would be a nice walk, instead of the very busy streets. In the garden I met a gardener who was friendly and soon turned into my personal guide for the day.

My gardener and guide in front of at 1 500-year-old tree

In the garden I could see all the famous trees and flowers of Asia. The gardener also let me smell on all the typical spices, taste fresh chilli (hot) and fruits (sweet).

Me in front af a fan palm

He also showed me the flying foxes. Big bats, over one meter in wingspan.

Not flying flying foxes

They are nocturnal but he scared some of them so that I could take a picture of a flying flying fox.

A flying flying fox

I find one similarity to Mauritius, churches, mosques and Buddha temples lies very close to each other. I don’t know if the Sri Lanka religious people have the same understanding for each other as they do on Mauritius, but I could easily hear the bells together with the prayer calling as I visited the temple. My gardener also showed me the temple with all the different statues of all kind of goods .

Buddha

I tried to ask my guide about the Tamil Tigers, but he wouldn’t say anything. An infected subject I think.

Buddha statues 

After seeing the temple I took a tuctuc to the railway station to buy tickets for the trip to Galle tomorrow. But it wasn’t possible to buy tickets in advance; I would have to get them the same day.

 
Me in a Tuc Tuc

At least I found a nice market close to the station, a very lively on with people wanting to sell me everything. I’m not very fond of that so I left on another tuctuc back to the hotel and the swimming pool.

Colombo Fort Railway Station

They are repainting the hotel and some parts are covered by constructions pipes. But there are no wood to walk on. The people just climb on the pipes, without any safety ropes. Makes me think about the forthcoming health inspection on my work. Swedish health inspectors could do some good work, outside of Sweden 😉

Will you catch me?

The thunderstorms are back making it almost impossible to leave the hotel. I would need a scuba set to walk Luckily for me, the in-house restaurant is great, and not very expensive. I now sit in my room watching CNN and listening to the Indian Ocean, some great ways are rolling in.