Day 2. Sri Lanka 9 February 2026. Colombo

Happy birthday Ben, we hope you have an amazing day.
I forgot to mention in yesterday’s blog, we got upgraded to a Jnr Suite at our hotel, The Galle Face Hotel, a very nice surprise for two very weary travellers. It is an old colonial style hotel of the British era in the country. A charming place to stay.
We both slept ok, and were up at about 7:20, that’s nearly 4hrs sleep!
The roads outside are busy, and I’m happy to report that the horns on every car, tuk-tuk, bike, truck and bus in Colombo are all working just fine.
Fun fact: Colombo is a city of 5 million and is divided into 15 administrative zones. The name comes from an English adaption of a of a Portuguese interpretation of a Sinhalese town named area “Kolon thota”
We have a slow start and made the most it, definitely no rush here.
We had breakfast on the terrace overlooking the Indian Ocean, a very humid induced hazy outlook. I think I might be in my element here, I mean, Sri Lankan curried chicken for breakfast! How good is that.

Our words of the day;
In Sinhala, Āyubōwan = Hello and Stūtiyi (stoodi)= Thank you
Or in Tamil, Vaṇakkam = Hello (may you live long) and Nanri = Thank you
There will be a test later! 
Sinhala is the most widely spoken language here, so we will go with them.

Hiru picked us up at 11am and took us for a driving city tour. We drove around, stopping briefly at some of the more interesting places. Our drive took in the Colombo National Museum, an impressive grand white building set on a large pie e of land. The Colombo Lotus Tower standing 356m tall – the largest self supported structure in south asia. The “flower bulb” high up the tower has revolving restaurant and changes colour. Our main stop for the morning was at Independence Square. The square and building on it were erected to celebrate the eventual two stages to full independence from England. Sri Lankan Independence Day is 4 February, it marks the day in 1948 when it received “half“ independence and then the same date in 1972 obtaining full independence when the country’s name was change from “Ceylon”, an Anglicized version of a Portuguese interpretation of an indigenous name to the current name, Sri Lanka, a name that means resplendent Island.
We had really interesting discussions with Hiru about all the symbolism on show around and in the Square, from the makeup of the Sri Lankan flag, the symbolism of the Lion statues, the history plaques around the cornice of the structure, and how Buddhism and other beliefs made their mark on modern Sri Lanka.
From there we drove to lunch at The Barefoot Cafe. The cafe is a focal point for art forms from art, poetry to film making, all through the inspiration of Barbara Sansoni. A great place to stroll through, admire and even purchase the works.
We shared lunch with Hiru, Deb and Hiru had Crab Frittata while I couldn’t pass up the Black Pork curry. We all enjoyed our meals.
After lunch we went for a short drive to Vihara Maha Dev Park, a large open space in the city opposite town hall ( the town hall is modelled on the US Capital Building). We were greeted at the park entrance by a large golden Buddha statue, sitting crossed legged meditating. Buddhist etiquette says you should never turn your back on Buddha while viewing statues of the Buddha, in other words taking selfies with Buddha in the background is very disrespectful. Things you learn. 
The park had long straight palm flanked paths running through it, we walked to an area close to where a few horses were kept and trees full of a local fruit bat colony. The biggest fruit bat in Sri Lanka can get up to 1.2m in length. There were shy small squirrels running through the trees, a pack of local dogs (owned by locals but with a wild gene that “makes” them roam the area). While in the park we also saw the Ceylon Iron Tree, the National tree of Sri Lanka.
From there we drove to the Old Dutch Hospital for a walking tour, on the way we stopped to take a look at the new Parliament House, set on an island in the middle of a lake and the Lotus Tower.
Once at the Old Dutch Hospital we set off on a walking tour of the old centre of town. It was really interesting discovering the “western” history of the area from the mid 16th century Dutch colonisation to present day. It was pointed out that well before the civilised europeans came to Sri Lanka the locals had running water and flushing toilets, europeans of that time were still “shitting in the woods”, so to speak. 
For Deb and I the crumbling old buildings reminded us of Cuba, so much of a very wealthy past crumbling away. We saw a combined lighthouse / clocktower, once the tallest building in the city(now dwarfed by more recent constructions, the old Presidential residence – now a convention centre, the old post office – with its three different coloured post boxes – green for local mail, red for national and blue for international mail. We saw the tallest chandelier in asia inside the Economic Museum, the elephant head adornments on the outside of the previous headquarters of the Standard Charter Bank building and so many more crumbling relics of the city’s past glory days. We stopped for a drink and view over the port area from the 4th floor of the Oriental Hotel.
From there we took a tuk-tuk to the lively streets of Pettah. They are the commercial hub and markets of the city/nation. There are bustling narrow streets of “shops” selling everything imaginable, from textiles to fresh fruit and veg, just no wet markets. The vibrant chaotic frenzy was mesmerising, so much life and so hard to describe. From “couriers” wheeling 2 wheeled trolleys with literally tins of merchandise on them (that stop for no one), to huge semi trailer trucks driving the narrow streets and add in tuk-tuks and thousands of people, what could go wrong!! It seems nothing, its just the way things are done, so interesting to watch. Because of the vast numbers that live and work in the area there are many worship sites, large Hindu temples and The Red Mosque – a mosque with a capacity of over 5000 worshippers, all within this chaos. It’s why we love these places, it’s local life at its’ very raw best, so real.
When our tour finished we got a tuk-tuk back to the Old Dutch Hospital, met up with Hiru again and went for dinner at the Ceylon Curry Club. Hiru helped us negotiate the menu. We finished up having a feast! It all started with a shot sized cup of warm Cinnamon drink, followed by several variations of Hoppers, then Mutton Kottu and Chicken Skewers. So delicious, and it was really good to share it with Hiru, learning how to eat it the Sri Lankan way, and having lots of laughs as we got to learn about each other a bit more.

We walked back along the coast to our hotel, a 15 to 20min walk. We were so glad we walked, nothing like a walk after a good meal and we got to see the lights and a bit of the night life of the city. We got back to the hotel at around 9pm, a big day, so enjoyable.

Tomorrow we head to Galle on the SW coast.