We've all been to sri lanka now! I went trincomalee-sigiriya-colombo-negombo and it was like a dream.
Trincomalee especially, only a few years past bombs and tidal waves, is a bare but beautiful reminder of how the land retains memories. Of course, most tourists there don't have a clue. The sea there is just so beautiful that it's hard to turn your back to it. But one morning we found ourselves chatting with Sajeeth Khan, a boatman and snorkelling guide, who told us stories about his 5 months in LTTE custody and close-range details of genocide in the area. His almost poetic Tamil ("time of the moon" is night, for example) was being washed away by the sound of waves, above us it was the noon sun, and all the stories he told us seemed so unreal. As if he was reciting a poem on tv, with a lot of static. Crazy. After a while the sun bathers flipped like eggs on a pan. Our skin was burning so we said goodbye and went to find some shade.
I wish I had spent some more time in Colombo. Tell me what it was like? I want to go back for a longer time.
Colombo was my last destination, so compared to where all I'd been staying before that, (Galle, Dambulla, Ahungalla) it seemed too citylike and traffic traffic. I saw, though, Geoffrey Bawa's home and a place called the Gallery Cafe which were ridiculously beautiful. It seems you can stay in his home, for a small fortune. I can't tell you what those spaces were like. It's too visceral a memory, but a definite must-do next time.
ReplyDeleteOur guide Don also took us to this he-uge clothes mall. It made us feel, for the few hours that we were in there, like we'd done nothing else but shop for 7 days. I hate malls.
Colombo seemed like someone had chopped a tiny piece from Bombay and attached it to the island. I too spent only a few hours there - ate a lavish lunch at the Galle Face Hotel and went to some weirdo clothes mall - which was inexcusably horrid.
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