Vajaan parin kuukauden reissun jälkeen oli jäljellä enää yksi etappi – Colombo. Sinne huristeltiin meidän Kandyn isäntämme tutulla pakulla ja jopa Colombon keskustassa suunnistus meni uskomattoman helposti. Yksi ilta ja yksi koko päivä ei ehkä ole riittävä näkemään Colombosta kaikkea, mutta ehdittiin nähdä kuitenkin jotain ja nauttia vielä olosta Sri Lankalla.
At the end of the two-month-trip, we had a brief 1.5-day stay in Colombo. Not enough time to see it all, but we did got to do some shopping, swimming, playing in the park and walking around. And, in general, enjoying Sri Lanka while we still had the chance.
All our things ready to be taken to the van for the final Sri Lankan leg. It does not look that much actually.
Our room at the Cinnamon Red. Small and cozy. I guess all the rooms try to have some kind uniqueness in them, like the painting on the back wall. We also had a sofa bed, but didn’t use it at all since the bed was huge.
The view from our room. The tall buildings at the back are in the Colombo Fort area. On the right you can see the Colombo Lotus Tower being built. When ready it should be 350m high.
Our hotel had an infinity pool at the top. Never been in one before.
A tunnel! Very close to our hotel there was a big park, which had quite a few activities for kids. There were naturally pretty many vendors too who sold anything from crap plastic toys to boiled corn cobs. Around the park there was also a running track which was popular later in the evening when it got cooler.
Swinging. Something you could do all day, every day, right?
There was a small and depressing aquarium in the middle of the park. The boys visited it and Eero probably didn’t know better to mind how small tanks the fishes were in. Eero is helpfully pointing one of the fishes out for you.
Sunset as seen from our hotel roof top. We didn’t see too many sunsets during the whole trip and almost missed this one too as we made an extra stop for ice cream when coming back to the hotel. But hey, priorities, priorities!
For the first evening we did not get to the restaurant we had planned, since it had been shut down 🙂 In the end it was very lucky, since the takeaway meal we took from a close-by restaurant was one of the best we’ve had on the whole trip. That chana dal was just out of this world and even the rice with shrimps was quite exceptional. It is utterly unbelievable how someone can make plain rice taste so good.
First evening’s dessert – chocolate cheese cake and strawberries. Not very Sri Lankan, but nevertheless it was all gone a short while later.
This is my monkey. Towards the end of the trip Eero got a bit more friendly with this monkey neck-pillow. Still, it didn’t become something you NEEDED to have with you all the time, which is a good thing I guess.
Dutch Hospital in Colombo Fort is probably the oldest building in the district. Once a hospital caring for Dutch East India Company officers, now a shopping mall.
This is not just any clock tower. It is the only lighthouse clock in the world and it is also THE place where all the distances throughout the country are measured from. It has been standing here since 1857.
Birds don’t even spare the great men.
They were constructing all over the city. In the background they are building the new Colombo Lotus Tower, which should become a new landmark for the city.
WARINNG, WARINNG! Don’t go bathing in the sea.
The Pope was coming to Sri Lanka just a few days after we were left and they were constructing this HUGE venue for his visit on the Galle Face Green. Here you see only half of the area, so you can imagine how many people they were expecting. On the left you can see the Galle Face Hotel and on the right the speaker platform being built.
Maiju sipping a drink at the Galle Face Hotel waterfront bar. This was one option for us to stay, but it was currently under a major renovation process. If the renovations would have been over already, it certainly would have been a superb (although pricey) option.
While Maju was happy with her drink, us boys had other games to play. Mikko had his phone and Eero a spoon and bowl full of crackers.
A collection of street side snacks we bought. From top left clockwise: ok, ok, good, bad.
The kids pool section was divided from the main pool with these steps. Naturally the steps were more interesting than the pool.
Eero had a great time there too, once he got comfortable being in the water. Then the problem was getting him out of water.
Our last Sri Lankan dinner: some kottu roti and jackfruit curry. Not the best one’s we’d had but perfectly satisfactory.
Little did he know that this was the last night in Sri Lanka. Poor thing.
Ready to take off? I think all of us would have wanted to take a ride with this toy plane instead of the one taking us back to the cold, cold Finland.
It was a long way home but the flights were relatively easy. During the trip, Eero had picked up the (bad) habit of watching cartoons. So you just needed to take care that there wasn’t anything too scary there. For some reason, there actually was in quite many of the shows they had on the console.