Hey there virtual travellers, jumping right into Day 7, in the morning we had a breakfast at the hotel at 8:30 AM and then were picked up by Erik at 9:40 AM.
We made a stop at 9:57 AM to wander around Independence Square in Colombo 7, but were quickly back in the car after around 25 minutes.
Having spent around 25 minutes wandering around, we then took a short trip in the van to get to Gangaramaya temple at 10:31 AM. The cost of entry was 400 LKR ($1.36 USD) per person. Again, we of course had to take our shoes off. Note, if wearing socks, it is better to also take socks off since throughout many of these temples there will be damp rugs which I think are meant to help keep things a bit cooler. As we walked around, I once more noted that they are definitely not shy about displaying ivory tusks here, at least not in a religious context.
At 11:03 AM I was thinking to myself that it was very odd (for me at least) the way they had so many random old items mixed in with obvious religious symbols. I wondered if anyone had done any work to actually catalogue and study the items, since it seemed that quite a bit of history could be gleaned from some of them. While this perhaps reads as unkind, at times I sort of felt like this was just a dumping ground for stuff when someone’s grandparents died. No doubt many, if not most of the donations on display had been made with true devotion, but others really just seemed rather haphazard.
At 11:13 AM I especially wondered what the significance of clocks and watches was. There were so many there, many of them obviously just cheap LCD watches, and there was no obvious attempt to display them in any sort of a nice way.
From there we walked to another nearby religious site (yep, shoes off again despite it being in the direct sunlight), this one being on one of Sri Lanka’s approximately 34,500 manmade lakes.
At 11:37 AM we were back in the vehicle headed over to a different area of the city where we arrived at 11:53 AM. There they had a very interesting mosque which is open to be viewed by tourists, but not until 4:00 PM, so we missed that. Still, the general area around there was nice, and I thought it might be good to wander around there a bit more.
Then at 12:17 PM we went into a very fancy looking “ayurvedic” skin care shop where Laurianne seemed to be in her element. Although I did not want to buy anything, it certainly was pretty inside.
A short walk from there we arrived at a pleasant seafood restaurant at 12:54 PM.
The bill at the restaurant was 14000 LKR ($47.74 USD) and a short trip later, Dorothee and I were left at Barefoot to do some shopping (meaning Dorothee would buy, and I would wander around) at 2:30 PM and Erik took Laurianne back to the hotel before heading to the airport for her flight back to Shanghai. I was sorry to see Laurianne, as I really did feel that she had become a nice friend during our time travelling together . . .
There actually was quite a bit to see at Barefoot, and we even had a couple of simple drinks in the cafe for a cost of 1400 LKR ($4.77 USD) for the two of us. We stayed there until 4:07 PM and then I got a PickMe rickshaw for 400 LKR ($1.36 USD) which left us at the hotel at 4:20 PM. We rested briefly, and then I convinced Dorothee to go out for an evening walk from 5:11 PM to 7:25 PM. For one direction we stayed on the beach, but on the way back we walked along the street, since there were no lights on the beach. I think it was a bit more than Dorothee had bargained for, but she was a good sport about the whole thing.
Having already been out much of the day, Dorothee and I decided to have our final dinner together in the hotel restaurant at 8:40 PM, and that was the end of Day 7.
Dorothee would be leaving the next morning, but I had decided to stay on in Sri Lanka on my own for another week. While it had not been the sort of travel which I would have normally chosen to do on my own, I will admit that it had been nice to change things up a bit. Certainly, it had been pleasant sharing with Dorothee in a non-work setting and also getting to start to make friends with Laurianne. On a separate note, earlier in the evening I had booked a bus ticket to Galle with 12Go, but I was a bit uncertain as to how well it was all actually going to work out. Of course, if you want to know what happened, you will just have to keep reading when Day 8 comes out.
Travels with Jay 