March 21, 2025
Rest day at Galle
Today we had a rest day and did yet another tourist ‘thing’ we went to visit the Old Fort of Galle. We saw this on TV when we watch the Australian Cricket team played Sri Lanka back in February. It is a short ride – just about 4km back towards Colombo – we passed it yesterday apparently but I missed it all – too busy concentrating on traffic and watching out for incoming people on my left and rough roads! First we had to contend with getting across the A2 just after peak traffic, fortunately for us just as we got to our junction a bus had blocked on side so no one could get through so we crossed and sort of pushed our way on the other side ducking and weaving between mopeds and tuk tuks! – yeah we now ride like locals – I am not religious buy God help Bendigo when we get back, I will have 6 weeks of this sort of riding under my belt and it will be a very hard habit to break!!!
Along the way to the fort we pass by the beach and pull over to watch fishermen pull in nets – my gosh they are lithe and strong not an ounce of fat on them! And looking from afar they all seem to be old – except for the person in the sea at the front ducking under each wave as it comes in – he is young! They seem to have 2 teams – 1 team with just a few men, the net is in a long loop out to sea so that small team seem to just hold one end of the net while the other bigger team of men haul it in. Fascinating to watch!
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We then continue on to the Fort and it is pretty impressive as you approach it and go through the arch way
There are alot of people about and heaps of local buses line up along Stadium road as we think there are alot of school excursions attending this place as there are kids and parents everywhere with the odd westerner here and there.
On top of the fort you get a great view of the cricket ground where Australia and Sri Lanka played
Here is video of the surrounds looking from the top of the fort and a photo of Neil!
While on top of the fort looking at the cricket ground something caught our eye – all I saw was a long tail and we both thought that it might be a snake – but no it is some type of small monitor or lizard. As we walk around there are quite a few of them of various sizes!
We first walk along the top of the fort towards the sea and needless to say it is hot and we are sweaty. I look at the Sri Lankans and they are not sweating but I then look at women my age (but not in my fitness condition) and they look like they are ready to pass out! What is interesting is for the westerners only the younger ones (and even then not all) are wearing hats the older ones are yet they are the ones that look like they are about to go into cardiac arrest!
The ocean looks nice and the water is clear – but that fuzz you can see in the photo below is litter!
Apparently that tall building is The Radisson Hotel where the Australian cricket team played.
Walking back to the bikes we pass by a park area where the locals are all sheltering under trees in the shade, we see one young budding wanna be Sri Lankan cricket player out practising with his father in a makeshift cricket pitch!
From here we to on the bikes and decided to ride around inside the fort and meander our way through some very narrow alley ways that are a mixture of local and western type shops, eateries, boutique type shops (yeah no op shops in here!), churches, mosques, apartments, hotels- you name it it is in this little area!
We then got out of the fort and continue on around the corner where one of the local buses nearly cleans Neil out! Crikey I slammed on my brakes and dare not put my foot on the ground should it take up valuable road space that this bus might need so I push myself hard up against a parked bus and hung on to it while I watched the bus which was on the other side of the road which another bus coming the opposite way was going to crash into so the bus in our lane swerves back in towards the back of Neil and misses him by inches – doing it all without slowing down! Gosh would love to see that manoeuvre done in the streets of Bendigo!
After having a wee kiniption on my bike we found the temple Neil had spotted yesterday
It certainly is impressive and unique. We didn't go in as we weren't really dressed appropriately but I didn't worry about not seeing the inside – like I said I am not religious but I think Neil and I should respect that the people in there are religious and they don't need a couple of western gawkers in there! I just like the outside beauty of it!
And another buddha shrine next to it
By now we are hungry as we only had fruit for brekky – pineapple and 2 small bananas so we go in search of a bakery. We decide to try our luck at at the local shopping bazaar and bazaar it is! I thought it was a one way street as there was no oncoming and most definitely not enough room for 2 way traffic – until we get to the end to an open area and we see trucks and cars come barrelling towards us so we duck left thinking it is a roundabout (well it looked like one) and planted ourselves right in the middle under the very faded no parking sign and look for a bakery, Neil finds one and we grab the bikes and go in. This is NOT the tourist area and we walk in completely naive thinking we might see a westerner – no! We are not sure on the ordering process as there are heaps of staff waiting on tables so we order a 1 litre 7up and 4 viyan rolls (we have taken a liking to these and finally find out the name but they are also called Kimbula buns or viana rolls.) They are basically a dough with a sugar syrup coating on top and twisted – gosh they are lovely! They then send us up stairs as all the tables down below are taken. When they do send us upstairs they do it with a very wry smile on their faces – either they are perplexed with why we are in a place like this or they can't wait to get home to tell there family that a couple of westerners came into the bakery today! Not sure what they call us westerners in their language!
After a refreshing and very quite upstairs seating area – there was another seating area above us and I think it was the food prep area and cooking and I caught one of the ladies above us looking down at us (word must have got up the flights of stairs that foreigners were in the building!!! LOL gosh I love this place!
We popped into the local supermarket (Deells) and decided to get a papaya for dinner and some strawberry black tea bags. We were served this at breakfast at Negombo and we took a liking to it, our place here has a small kitchenette with kettle and cups so we take the plunge and boil tap water and devoured (when it was cool enough to drink) our strawberry black tea. It is very refreshing and yes Flo you don't drink it with milk! It cost us 900 rupees ($4.83 AUS) for a packet of 20 bags. The only one available was this one as the one we had at Negombo was in a paper tea bag and was cheaper as I had a look there. Alas we were gasping for hot tea (yeah a bit of an oxymoron to want hot tea in this hot environment!) so we splashed out and I open the box and it has top quality tea in triangle tea bag not made out of paper but that flash new stuff (a bit like a nylon netting) they now use with boutique type teas and the leaves were chunkier not the saw dust you get from twinings now
So tomorrow is a short day to Matara.
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Hey you might need to use the temples to say your blessings especially after the bus escapade where Neil was nearly hit!!
I can just see you two taking these road habits back to Oz, swerving & in the wrong lane cutting dad off on a bike path or the Bendigo traffic lol 😂
Looks like you guys are really enjoying this trip, you seem way happier than Oz cycling & plus it seems way cheaper!!
Enjoy ❤️
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