After screaming back up the very touristy west coast and into Colombo, with a pit stop at the very cool old Dutch Galle Fort, I was forced to find a room in what was supposed to be the lesser, less preferred annex of my guesthouse. At least according to reviews on Trip Advisor. As it turns out, I think the annex is much nicer. A little noisier due to traffic, but that’s what earplugs are for.
Awaiting my redeye to Bangkok for the weekend, I decided to blow off Lonely Planet and just go explore some neighborhoods in hope of finding how the other half – in this 3rd world country – live. I only saw one McDonalds the whole time I’ve been here, which is a bit of a symbol of middle to upper class in a 3rd world country, so I caught a tuk tuk to Mickey D’s and started snooping around from there. At first I couldn’t really find anything worth exploring, but eventually I got a few blocks over from the busy main streets and found all kinds of interesting back streets full of mansions and important government offices. There was the very swish looking Prime Minister’s office, the huge mayor’s mansion, many government office (including one for the dictionary of Sinhalese, the local language), the Russian Embassy, and the United Arab Emirates embassy – with a long line out the front door. Probably Sri Lankans hoping to work there. There were also nice shady lanes that snuck past huge houses behind big walls with very expensive cars out front and numerous servants tending and guarding important things like Hummers.
While snooping around I also stumbled across a compound of museums and popped in to check out the main Colombo / Sri Lanka history / cultural museum. The building itself was probably the most impressive. Huge and built in the late 1800’s. It was full of artifacts from thousands and thousands of years of Buddhist, Hindu, Dutch, British, and Sri Lankan history. It was an interesting place to see after traveling around the country because there was quite a bit of reference to places I had been. Afterwards I caught my last crazy tuk tuk back to my hotel for dinner and waited for my airport limo to whisk me away into the night for my redeye.
