09.09.18 - 15.09.18 Galle, Negombo

At the end of our time in Sri Lanka, we had another dose of colonial history. We spent four nights in an old Dutch fort in the city of Galle on the south coast. The fort is a UNESCO World Heritage site and was renovated and beautified after the 2004 tsunami. Now, in the narrow alleyways, you'll find one boutique hotel and designer shop after another. Locals can hardly afford to eat, shop, let alone live here. We enjoyed the tranquility in the streets and only left the fort for short visits to the markets of the actual city of Galle, where it is as bustling as usual. So we spent three very cozy days strolling along the fort walls, enjoying fresh fruit juices, and watching some movies in our air-conditioned room. Despite our explanation that we are on a long journey and sometimes just want to live in the moment and not see everything, the owners of our guesthouse didn't seem to understand that we don't want to visit the tea plantations, the turtle farm, or the Peace Pagoda. The growing tourism in Sri Lanka is very much characterized by being offered tours everywhere and having everything organized for you. Even tuk-tuk drivers would drive you 150km at a moment's notice. That's when our travel style often requires us to persistently decline.

Our last two nights in Sri Lanka were spent only 10km from the airport in the city of Negombo, where we finally enjoyed affordable prices for our rice and curry, in addition to a short sightseeing tour. So our time in Sri Lanka ended very comfortably and hotly.

Our 4 weeks in Sri Lanka were really nice. Since we expected a strong similarity to India, we were pleasantly surprised in many aspects. We felt very welcome and were mostly met with a lot of helpfulness. Even some taxi drivers, whose services we declined, helped us find the right bus, where we were rarely ripped off (of course, there is that in Sri Lanka too, otherwise it would be too good to be true). Most people always had a smile and a warm greeting for us, although like in India, many find it hard not to stare at us. In addition, the great diversity of the relatively small island is great for a round trip, and the chaos in the cities is comparatively limited.