Sri Lanka had not originally been a part of our plan, but after hearing many good things from Europeans (for whom it's a popular destination), we decided to look into it further. We learned that Sri Lanka has beautiful beaches, great hiking spots, and some of the best wildlife viewing opportunities outside Africa. Also, the country's relatively small size makes traveling within the country easier. Finally, we thought of the words of one very well-traveled Dutch friend who said, "Sri Lanka is the best of India without the worst of India." All of that, together with well-priced tickets to/from KL (out of which we had already booked our tickets to New Zealand), made Sri Lanka "click".
The day after Caitlin, Tim, and Jack left to fly back to the US, we flew out on a 3 1/2 hour flight from KL to Colombo. We arrived late at night and had 2 full days for the sights in Colombo (which turned out to be about 1 1/2 days more than we'd actually need).
Our first full day in Colombo started off with a scam attempt. We'd been told how friendly Sri Lankans are, so when a gentleman near us asked where we were from and starting happily talking to us, we first assumed it was Sri Lankan hospitality at work. When he started telling us all about a "special Buddhist ceremony" that we had to go to because "it's the one day of the year you can take a picture of the Buddha statue", my "something doesn't feel right" instinct started to go off. My scam radar started blaring when the guy called out to a tuk-tuk driver, who had just happened to pull up right then, "Can you take them to the ceremony?" and started urging us to get in right away so we wouldn't miss a thing. We politely said no and moved on....and read later that this is a common scam that's coordinated by the two individuals. The tuk-tuk driver would have taken us (at best) on a long ride or (at worst) to some sketchy part of town and then demanded a lot of money. Fortunately we didn't fall for it, but it was disappointing that the friendliness was just a ruse to scam us.
After that, we found a different tuk-tuk for a tour of the city. The city is not well organized and traffic is chaotic, so walking from one area to another is a bit difficult. We're pretty sure the driver drove in circles, because later when we looked at a map we realized everything was closer together than the route we took. All things considered it was not the worst scam we could have fallen for, but it was still disappointing for a place we'd heard such good things about.
We saw a few interesting sites during our tuk-tuk tour, at least. This is Colombo City Hall, whose architectural style resembles the US Capitol Building.
The Colombo lighthouse was pretty and, interestingly, only painted on the side facing the ocean.
We visited a colorful but also very cluttered temple, which I can not remember the name of.
We stopped briefly at Independence Memorial Hall, which was built to commemorate when Sri Lanka gained independence from the British in 1948.
We also went to the Wolvendaal Church, which is still in use by the Dutch Reformed Church. It was funny to see Dutch tombstones and to read signs in Dutch.
We ended our tour at the old Dutch Hospital, which has now been turned into restaurants and shops.
The next day, we headed to the Colombo National Museum, which was one of the reasons we planned for a second full day in Colombo. The description of the museum was really positive, and we were excited to learn more about the history and culture of Sri Lanka. When we got there (and after buying relatively expensive tickets), we learned that almost all of the museum is closed for renovations...which seem to have been going on for quite a while and with no end in sight. There were only 3 exhibits open, so our planned full day visit took less than two hours.
One of the most interesting parts was the old stones with the emblem from the Verenigde Oost-indische Compagnie (the Dutch East India Company).
The boys found these ancient stone urinals pretty funny.
With all our extra time, we walked through a nearby park where we saw bats hanging from a large tree.
And that was about it for our time in Colombo...there was not much to be excited about in the city. I think it was the least interesting capital I've ever visited, and we could have easily seen and done everything in one day (or even less). It was not a very exciting introduction to a country we'd heard only good things about. Leaving Colombo, Bob and I both said, 'We really hope the rest of Sri Lanka is better than this"....
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