2017 Sri Lanka – Galle
8th February 2017
Next stop was Galle. Hotel Fort was next to the Galle fort walls and owned by a Sri Lankan woman who had spent the last 35-years living in Monte Carlo of all places. Her father was a farmer in Galle and the hotel was built by her as an extension to her father’s house. It was a new hotel built with surprisingly high-quality fittings and would have been perfect but for the fact our room had no outside window and so was quite dark. The owner was very friendly and couldn’t do enough for us after I fixed some long-standing problems she had with her booking.com account. She showed us the back of the hotel which had a small, annexed building that was subject to strict regulations so any alterations or repairs had to maintain the original structure. Governments everywhere lose control of their sanity when it comes to listed buildings but her problem was a new one on me. The original building was made with bamboo held together by mud and then plastered. During the building of the new hotel, a section of plaster came away and showed that some of the mud was missing. She wanted to plaster over it but the inspector saw it and insisted that she used the original material, which was mud, even though it was going to be covered with plaster. Not surprisingly, she couldn’t find anyone who knew how to work with mud so they were at a standstill. As if that wasn’t daft enough, the front wall was leaning badly and looked like it would fall at any time. The council’s solution was to wait and let the wall fall down and rebuild it using non-existent mud workers.
It was nearly sunset so we had a pleasant walk around the fort walls and watched the sun go down. Galle was by far the most touristy town we had been to in Sri Lanka with most of the tourists being Chinese. The fort and town were originally built by the Dutch so we could see a lot of Dutch influence. It was a lovely little town which would have been dramatically improved if they had pedestrianised some of the streets which were small and chaotic due to taxis and tuk-tuks training for the Sri Lankan Grand Prix.
We hired a tuk-tuk to take us to a beach in Hikaduwa and were lucky to get a very interesting driver who spoke good English. On the way, we passed the spot that was the worst affected by the 2004 Tsunami. Whenever I read about that Tsunami it always sounded like Thailand was the worst affected but I was surprised to hear that Sri Lanka had ten times more deaths. We were mesmerised as our driver told us of his experience on that terrible day. He was on the beach when the first big wave came. He managed to swim to a tree and after being rescued he made his way to his house but was confident it would be ok because it was on higher ground. After checking that his family was safe he went back to help others. He told us that he had saved three foreigners which seemed a strange statement to make. One would assume that whether they were foreigners or not would be irrelevant but he explained that it was a Sri Lankan’s duty to save foreigners first. It might seem strange to pick and choose who to save but I know in some cultures they regard a visitor to their home or country as being more important than themselves. Poor families will give what little food to a guest because that is their duty. I am sure he didn’t leave local people to drown so he could go off and save foreigners so I suppose locals just didn’t count in his tally.
We stopped at the place where an overcrowded train was hit and derailed by the first wave. Some people got out and sheltered behind or on top of the train thinking they were safe. Then a second wave came that was worse than the first because by then, all the houses had been demolished so there was nothing to slow the wave down. In terms of fatalities, it was the worst train accident in history. 1700 from the train were confirmed dead but it was thought that at least 2000 died as it was impossible to know exactly how many were on the train. To add to the tragedy, the authorities knew the Tsunami was coming and managed to stop five other trains in time. This train had stopped at a station and while the authorities were frantically phoning the station to warn them, the station personnel were helping people onto the train. Had someone been in the office to answer the phone, all those lives would have been saved.
Finally, we stopped at the Tsunami Museum and what an experience that was. I think it was the informal way that it was put together in a tatty old building that made it all the more poignant. In the first room were lots of photos and facts about the Tsunami. We see dead bodies all the time on TV so I suppose we get hardened to it but what got to me was the photos of people and their accounts written in capitals underneath them. The more I read, the more emotional I became and was already finding it difficult when I got to the following account:
“I WAS IN THE HOME WITH MY FAMILY WHEN THE TSUNAMI HIT. I GOT INTO THE COCONUT TREE THERE FOR I WAS SAFETY. YOU CAN SEE THAT COCONUT TREE THROUGH THIS PICTURE IN MY GARDEN. BUT MY FAMILY MEMBERS DIED. NOW I AM ALONE.
SAMINDU
At this point, I became overcome by emotion and left the hut before I started crying like a baby.
Our driver told us that not one statue of Buddha was destroyed by the Tsunami. It reaffirmed his belief in Buddhism and he became more devout than ever.
After a day at the beach, we returned to Galle for yet more strolling around town. As in all tourist towns, most shops sold the same Chinese imports but we still managed to find a few shops tucked away here and there. We went to one restaurant recommended by Trip Advisor that offered rice and ten curries for an absurdly low price. We ordered only one meal by mistake but still didn’t manage to finish it between the two of us. We had no idea what the different curries were but it was all very tasty and my pain threshold had definitely increased so I was able to keep up with Federika. 
While out walking one day we came across a large field with hundreds of young girls doing some kind of dance. I had no idea what it was all about but it was really quite moving. 
Further down the road Federika was determined to befriend a cow but didn’t get very far.
There was only one beach in Galle which was crowded and not very nice so we went to a beach at Unawatuna. What more can a person ask for than a beach, a good book and a free sunbed and shade? During the drive to the beach, the tuk-tuk driver cleared up another mystery for me. We had noticed how crazy the bus drivers were in Sri Lanka, weaving in and out of traffic like in a Hollywood car chase. One morning while we were in Ella there had been a fatal accident not far from us when a bus crashed into a lorry head-on. The reason for the reckless driving was that many different bus companies were operating the same routes in competition. Drivers were on a low salary but got a commission on how many fares they picked up. If a driver saw a bus in front of him, he would try and overtake it so he could pick up the people waiting at the next stop. By the time the slower bus got there, the bus stop was empty. With the roads being narrow it was a disaster waiting to happen.
It was a joy to stay at such a good and well-run hotel and we spoke quite a lot with the owner. One thing that surprised me was that the rooms didn’t provide tea and coffee-making facilities which you would expect in a hotel of that standard. It didn’t bother us but I was interested to know why. The owner told us that they used to provide electric jugs but they had so much trouble with Chinese guests cooking in them that she had to remove them. Rice, potatoes and eggs were what was usually cooked but on one occasion someone cooked crabs and as it was impossible to get rid of the smell she had to throw the jug away.
Mosquito bites remained a big problem for both of us. I had no idea if they were all bites from Tangalle or if there were new bites from Galle. We had some good antihistamine cream for the itchiness but they didn’t have much effect so I looked on the internet to see if there was anything else we could try. I wished I hadn’t. The search results showed countless headlines on how there was a big problem with dengue fever in Sri Lanka. Several Trip Advisor users reported that they had caught it in the Galle Fort area which was exactly where we were staying. To make matters worse, there was an open storm drain next to our hotel where one of the nearby hotels was pumping raw sewage which was the perfect breeding ground for dengue fever mosquitoes. The general opinion was there was not much you could do about it except don’t get bitten but by then we had at least a hundred bites each. I was not going to lose any sleep over it but I did start using my repellent even though the stink from it bothered me more than the mosquitoes. We spent five nights in Galle and it was the first time I could remember that we felt we had spent too long in a place. It is always better to be sad to leave.
2017 Sri Lanka
