My final day in Colombo, and abiding impressions today are of kindness and overwhelming national pride, even despite the constant hassle-I’ve met several native sri lankans who confirm my belief that the pestering here is worse than India, on exactly the grounds I’d worked out, that there is a massive gap between rich and poor, and its inconceivable to the poor that any white person can’t be rich!
Post the sumptuous breakfast I set off to try out the trains, and bought a 3 rd class ticket to Mount Lavania, the upmarket beach suburb. On boarding, I was ushered into second class by everyone, who insisted I should move carriages, without paying.
The train is British Rail from the fifties, certainly better than India, though with the same sellers and hawkers clambering over/in/ on people all the time…you never go hungry or thirsty in this continent.
Mount Lavinia was badly damaged by the tsunami, and the restaurants and fishing villages have regrown along the edge of the beach. The lavish landmark Mount Lavinia Hotel sits grandly on the cliff top, but everything else has a desolate air to it, more fishermen than tourists.
It was here that I met two native sri lankans, one married to a Japanese lady, and one to a Swedish lady, both of who were keen to tell me how much they loved revisiting their native land, seeing family, and visiting old haunts, both keen to praise their country, and also to sigh about its decline-the economy here is struggling, and the tourists are not coming.
Returning to Colombo in the afternoon cool, I browsed the alleys and souks of Pettah, the bazaar quarter, discovering the dried fish market (the smell and the flies!), fruit stalls, wonderful nuts and spices, and clothes of every possible description.
So supper was a wonderful spiced mango packet, oranges, and red sugar sweets drenched in fat, gorgeous but soooo fattening. I gave away most of them to an old man begging, and he was genuinely delighted, kissing my feet, which made me feel bad for often thinking the worst.
Post the sumptuous breakfast I set off to try out the trains, and bought a 3 rd class ticket to Mount Lavania, the upmarket beach suburb. On boarding, I was ushered into second class by everyone, who insisted I should move carriages, without paying.
The train is British Rail from the fifties, certainly better than India, though with the same sellers and hawkers clambering over/in/ on people all the time…you never go hungry or thirsty in this continent.
Mount Lavinia was badly damaged by the tsunami, and the restaurants and fishing villages have regrown along the edge of the beach. The lavish landmark Mount Lavinia Hotel sits grandly on the cliff top, but everything else has a desolate air to it, more fishermen than tourists.
It was here that I met two native sri lankans, one married to a Japanese lady, and one to a Swedish lady, both of who were keen to tell me how much they loved revisiting their native land, seeing family, and visiting old haunts, both keen to praise their country, and also to sigh about its decline-the economy here is struggling, and the tourists are not coming.
Returning to Colombo in the afternoon cool, I browsed the alleys and souks of Pettah, the bazaar quarter, discovering the dried fish market (the smell and the flies!), fruit stalls, wonderful nuts and spices, and clothes of every possible description.
So supper was a wonderful spiced mango packet, oranges, and red sugar sweets drenched in fat, gorgeous but soooo fattening. I gave away most of them to an old man begging, and he was genuinely delighted, kissing my feet, which made me feel bad for often thinking the worst.
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