Bettysue says: Here we are in Sri Lanka - I am beginning to feel like we are here - we had a harrowing travel - total of 30 hours of flying (4 flights) and waiting (record was 8 hours) in airports to arrive in Columbo praying our guesthouse sent someone to fetch 2 travel-zombies (They did!). We got deposited in a room (with a bed!) at midnight 2 days later than when we left. Grateful!!
The IceBear Guesthouse in Negombo was PERFECT for us - a room, a beautiful garden, a great veranda where we lived for 2 days recovering. We met some nice couples (one lives in Goa - luckies!! and one was a carrot farmer in Cambrideshire). Dave and Bill drank arrack at night and we slept off the travel/drink/whatever. We did walk on the beach a bit (see some handmade fishing boats - we watched as the fishers separated the little caught fish from the nets) but when I say we lived on the veranda - that is the truth. It overlooks a beautiful garden of palms and bushes and large crow like birds that drink from water spigots. Just what you need to chill out. They s
erve all meals there so you only have to move from veranda to veranda to eat.
After a couple of days of that, we were ready to begin our 'work'. We travelled to Columbo - busy, trafficy with tuk-tuks going way too fast, (really, the street scenes look the same same in Mexico, Bali, Guatemala, Thailand - lots of dusty concrete shops and houses, dogs avoiding traffic, people walking in not very separated from the traffic sideways, this time the ladies are wearing saris and salwar kamezs) and under the stress of a high security zone -lots of soldiers, jets flying over, etc.
The place we are staying is FABULOUS! It is in the lonely planet but it is a little odd - there are only 2 large rooms with a shared living room attached to an office that conducts travel arrangements to very high-end hotels in Sri Lanka and Indochine. It is upscale but not expensive. The building it is in is a large dilapdated office building that reminds Dave of rundown Barcelona hotels and I have seen the same in Italy in 1968 when I travelled there. Weird, large empty halls, chipped steps up floors, tiny deep open ventilation/light portals that look only out at the next room, a nightwatchman asleep at the door, you would never guess that behind an ordinary door - there is a large clean stylish apartment. It is across the street from the Galle Face hotel - one of the colonial icons of Sri Lanka - you sit on the veranda looking out at the sea where Leonard
and Virginia Wolfe sat (and everyone else passing through Sri Lanka - then Ceylon) The travel people in the office are arranging us to stay in an extremely upscale hotel in Galle on our way back to Colombo in a couple of weeks - one of those - 'I will call a friend to get you a room for not much more than what you would pay - wonderful/happy events'. We try to be open to the universe in situations like that and we continue our habit of mooching off the rich lifestyle.
I have to say they are so friendly and helpful - when we asked where to buy a sim card for our travel phone - they gave us one to use with lots of credit on it! They are running a company called Sri Lanka in Style - see their website http://www.srilankainstyle.com/ and you can see the hotels they book and can see our room at the Galle Face Court. We are in the Orange room.
We are travelling to the elephant orphanage and Kandy on Monday. Excited to see the babies and we will attach photos and tell you about that. I know that Dave wants to blog soon so I will let him...(I am asking him to post some pictures now - need to sort out how to do it on this machine.....)
The IceBear Guesthouse in Negombo was PERFECT for us - a room, a beautiful garden, a great veranda where we lived for 2 days recovering. We met some nice couples (one lives in Goa - luckies!! and one was a carrot farmer in Cambrideshire). Dave and Bill drank arrack at night and we slept off the travel/drink/whatever. We did walk on the beach a bit (see some handmade fishing boats - we watched as the fishers separated the little caught fish from the nets) but when I say we lived on the veranda - that is the truth. It overlooks a beautiful garden of palms and bushes and large crow like birds that drink from water spigots. Just what you need to chill out. They s
erve all meals there so you only have to move from veranda to veranda to eat.After a couple of days of that, we were ready to begin our 'work'. We travelled to Columbo - busy, trafficy with tuk-tuks going way too fast, (really, the street scenes look the same same in Mexico, Bali, Guatemala, Thailand - lots of dusty concrete shops and houses, dogs avoiding traffic, people walking in not very separated from the traffic sideways, this time the ladies are wearing saris and salwar kamezs) and under the stress of a high security zone -lots of soldiers, jets flying over, etc.
The place we are staying is FABULOUS! It is in the lonely planet but it is a little odd - there are only 2 large rooms with a shared living room attached to an office that conducts travel arrangements to very high-end hotels in Sri Lanka and Indochine. It is upscale but not expensive. The building it is in is a large dilapdated office building that reminds Dave of rundown Barcelona hotels and I have seen the same in Italy in 1968 when I travelled there. Weird, large empty halls, chipped steps up floors, tiny deep open ventilation/light portals that look only out at the next room, a nightwatchman asleep at the door, you would never guess that behind an ordinary door - there is a large clean stylish apartment. It is across the street from the Galle Face hotel - one of the colonial icons of Sri Lanka - you sit on the veranda looking out at the sea where Leonard
and Virginia Wolfe sat (and everyone else passing through Sri Lanka - then Ceylon) The travel people in the office are arranging us to stay in an extremely upscale hotel in Galle on our way back to Colombo in a couple of weeks - one of those - 'I will call a friend to get you a room for not much more than what you would pay - wonderful/happy events'. We try to be open to the universe in situations like that and we continue our habit of mooching off the rich lifestyle.I have to say they are so friendly and helpful - when we asked where to buy a sim card for our travel phone - they gave us one to use with lots of credit on it! They are running a company called Sri Lanka in Style - see their website http://www.srilankainstyle.com/ and you can see the hotels they book and can see our room at the Galle Face Court. We are in the Orange room.
We are travelling to the elephant orphanage and Kandy on Monday. Excited to see the babies and we will attach photos and tell you about that. I know that Dave wants to blog soon so I will let him...(I am asking him to post some pictures now - need to sort out how to do it on this machine.....)
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1 comment:
The Galle Face Court is beautiful! What a score!
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