Fort, Waves & Cricket

After breakfast we headed back into Galle to look around the old fort (unlike Colombo, the old walls still exist). We started at the lighthouse, and then a bright white painted mosque over the road from it. On heading to the outer walls of the fort we were greeted with another great view of the Indian Ocean (the small beach also looked much better than Unawatuna too). The waves looked really intense, smashing against the rocks, pushing itself up the shore as they came in and retreating quickly back out (there are lots of cases of drowning in the seas around here and you could see why). We spent the next 30 minutes following the walls around; watching some locals jump off a big rock into the sea, some kids playing cricket and some hawkers trying to sell picture with a monkey or the cobras they had hidden in baskets. The heat has proved to be more bearable than Thailand.

As we got to the clock tower (they say it's the most accurate clock around as it was built by the British!) we also noticed the Galle cricket ground. Each year they have a competition for the schools, and rivalry between them has lasted over hundred years ago. They are well supported by former pupils and professional players. The fort must be heaving at international matches, no need to buy a ticket! This is now the 4th cricket playing nation I have visited, without seeing any actual cricket.

After walking around most of the outer walls we went inside the National Marine Archaeology Museum, housed in former Dutch warehouses (I forgot to mention Sri-Lanka was colonised by the Portuguese and the Dutch before the British). It was full of artifacts from shipwrecks from the bay (the water is really shallow and there are a lot of rocks that used to catch captains out). Even some of the fishing boats that are still used now are very different from others we have seen, the body of them is about 30cm wide, and only have wavebreakers on one side.

For dinner we ordered the Spicy Sri Lankan Chicken and Devilled Squid, the latter being a sweet and sour style dish, that tastes a lot like a spicy tomato ketchup, rather than the Chinese style you might be familiar with. Pineapple fritters for dessert! Each night the family decorated our table in flowers, and we would see them all at least once during dinner, very personal service that we hadn't got in larger hotels on our trip.

Bowls of rice; 53