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We left the safari lodge and hit the road for Colombo. Our first chance for a leg stretch was along the side of the road in Ratnapura - one of the most well known gem areas in Sri Lanka. Given that the country is home to 40 of the 85 types of gems in the world, we’d imagined it would be a fairly high-tech and commercial affair. But not so much. Basically, with a licence, you can put up a hut and dig a hole and haul gem bearing dirt up, seive it and find gems. The government theoretically owns all the gems and there are goverment approved and owned gem stores - but the finder gets a significant percentage of the value of the stone as their reward. The pits are lined with a type of waterproof fern and once it’s deemed to be empty, the sieved dirt is just piled back in and they go and dig another pit somewhere else. All quite eco-friendly really.
We stopped at one of these gem pits and went for a closer look. Whilst we’d heard the theory and seen the video at our visit to the gem museum in Kandy, we still were quite amazed at how basic and hands on this mining system is.
It took hours to get to Colombo then another hour or so to get into and through Colombo. We enjoyed a drive through the large and wealthy buildings of the embassy and diplomatic quarter. Some beautiful old homes are still the hands of the original tea plantation families.
We were suffering chronic temple fatigue after Bagan, Myanmar and that was a month ago, so the final temple visit felt like a medal should have been bestowed upon arrival. We got to the Gangaramaya (Vihara) Buddhist temple by mid afternoon and, surprise, surprise, this modern temple was actually an incredible visit. The newness and bright colours were in contrast to most we’ve seen, there was also a female representation of Buddha - first one of those we’ve see. The highlight of this temple is its museum. Whilst it does contain quite a few religious thing - the smallest buddh in the world, a relic of Buddha’s hair, and many, many buddhas from all around the world, it also contains gifts. Anything that has been donated to the temple - from wealthy local residents and from visitors of all types. There’s a cabinet piled with watches, one with gold items, a shelf of vintage radios (probably the height of technology when they were donated), ivory - tusks, figurines, everything, literally all sorts of things. We missed the car section as it was across the road - but even cars have been donated to the temple. It was nothing like we expected and we were certainly happy we forced ourselves to see Just. One. More. Temple.
Back into the coach and driving through town we made it to Galle Face Green. This is a large park on the waterfront and hs a long colonial history - all the way from the Dutch using the spapace to defend against the Portuguese with cannon emplacements to the British using it for sport (horse racing, polo, rugby, cricket, etc.). Today it is emptyish in the middle of the afternoon but is popular with the locals in the evening and a very family oriented space. It is particularly popular for flying kites with the sea breezes bowling in.
In due course we returned to the OZO Colombo - our original hotel. Theoretically the tour finishes tomorrow with an airport transfer, but our flight is departing the following morning at 7.30 am on the 31st. In order to have a relaxing packing day and a rest before the long trip to New Zealand (Colombo to Singapore to Melbourne to Christchurch and 2 nights later on to Nelson!), we booked an extra night. The hotel was running at less than 30% capacity so very kindly let us keep the posh room with the water view for our second night. Sensible really, but appreciated.
Friday night saw us up at the rooftop bar for burgers (months without red meat meant a bit of a craving), Saturday was breakfast at the very civilised hour of 9.30 am then back to the room for some serious sorting, stacking, chucking and packing. We’d both brought clothes to Asia that were ‘on their last legs’ - specifically for discarding along the way as they fell apart. After 4 months in Asia (Vietnam, Cambodia, Laos, Thailand, Myanmar, India and Sri Lanka), the last of the Mohicans finally died and was laid to rest in the hotel rubbish bin. We bought very little along the way - a handbag in Vietnam that just now replaced my bag that had fallen apart, some jewellery, postcards and a couple of souvenirs for gifts. Our long flights have a luggage limit of 40 kg - but as soon as we reach NZ we’re back at 23 kg + 7 kg carry on - so no point getting carried away.
Our final night was a salad for dinner, a final sunset and an early night (even earlier than usual at 8 pm...). It was hard to sleep but we gave it a go as our driver was due at 4am on Sunday. Yes. In the morning.
(Pictured - the Lotus Tower, a gift from China to Sri Lanka - downtown near the railroad tracks.)
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