Breakfast

We started the day by taking the lift down to the 3rd floor where they served breakfast. The offering available shocked me. You could indulge in cooked breakfast from China, India, Sri Lanka, Britain as well as fruit, yogurt, cold fish dishes, cereals, bread and cakes. What made my eyes pop was the section that offered frozed yogurt and various flavours of ice-cream.

If you couldn’t find something you liked amongst all these dishes there must be something wrong with you.

Geoffrey Bawa Museum

Caesar picked us up from the hotel at 10 and drove us to find the Geoffrey Bowa House at 11, 33 Street. However we arrived 30 minutes too early for the tour we had booked.

We set off on a short tour of the city stopping at one of the parks to take a quick photo of this golden Budhha and cathcing a glimpse of the Victorian Memorial Hospital

After our short tour of the city we returned to the Geoffrey Bawa House and found another 20 people waiting for the tour to begin.

We removed our shoes and joined the other tourists in the entrance/garage where a 1930s Rolls Royce also stood. The guide spent a lot of time smiling at his audience as he tried to explain some of the details about 11, 33rd Street. Unfortunately the combination of his constant smile and his heavy accent made it quite difficult to understand a lot of what he said.

The house as it stands today is an amalgam of 4 properties bought from the early sixties onwards. They all join together making a very pleasant living space with plenty of light entering each area usually from above.

Unfortunately the guide prevented us from taking photos as we entered the main part of the house so I have very little to show. For me the most interesting aspect of the tour came from looking at the eclectic mix of objects and images that Bawa had collected that were scattered everywhere. This mix including fascinating furniture which like everything else came from all over the world.

The tour continues

From the Bawa house we drove around and visited the outside of the Natural History Museum set in lovely grounds and displaying all the grandeur of the British Empire in its heyday during the mid-19th Century.

We then moved on to Independence Square where you’ll find the Independence Memorial Hall. In front of the hall stands a statue to D.S. Senanayake the first prime minister of an independent Sri Lanka. The Memorial Hall has a series of numbered reliefs set in the highest part of the walls depicting the story of Sri Lanka. I have yet to find out what these releifs actual show in detail.

Gangaramaya Temple

From the home of independence we moved onto the main Buddhist temple in Colombo, the Gangaramaya Temple. The place is filled with gifts from the congregation and others from around the world and I found it a bit gaudy.

The statues of the Buddha are covered in gold leaf and surrounded by statues of what look like, from a christian perspective, angels. They have a laughing Buddha, maybe to indicate that you can have fun and eat as much as you want and still be a Buddhist.

Ministry of Crab

Caesar dropped us off at the Dutch Hospital and left for home while we arrived for our booking at the Ministry of Crab at 2:15 pm. We had a very nice welcome and were shown to our table inside which had the fans above, making it slightly cooler than outside.

We ordered an XL Crab which we shared in garlic and chilli sauce with side dishes of rice, bread and mixed vegetables. It arrived ad we tucked in. What a mess because even with the nut crackers, prong and your fork it’s impossible to reach the crab meat without holding the crab in your fingers.

I enjoyed the experience but I felt that the crab had less flavour than I expected. These are river crabs and perhaps they just have less taste.

Maggi ordered a coconut creme brulee which came in a great fanfare with them burning the sugar in front of us.

A stroll along the promenade

We walked back to the Shangri-La Hotel in the heat of the afternoon and then relaxed in our room. In the early evening we walking along the front again and turned back towards our hotel in amongst the street stalls.

Again lots of people eating here and sitting down with their plates of food on the sidewalk.

We then crossed the road back to the Mall at Galle Place and made a tour of the whole building. In the course of our journey we bought some very expensive Assam Tea. We also purchased some awful ice-cream which I couldnt finish.

Back to the Hotel for bed.