Day 1 - Galle

Day 1

We finally arrived in Galle! After leaving our cats on Saturday at midday, we arrived at our Galle hotel at 4am on Sunday! And its only a 2 and a half hour time difference from Shanghai! First we flew to Hong Kong, with half our school, one was even on our flight. After an hour, and a whisky purchase at HK airport, we boarded our 6 hour flight to Sri Lanka. There were good films on board too! I watched Murder on the Orient Express. It was really good!

We landed at midnight ish and faffed about at passport control because we couldn't find a pen. We eventually got our cases and found our driver, who was so friendly. He took us to Galle, and our lovely simple hotel very close to the fortifications. Galle is a walled city owned by the Dutch, then British. You can tell, it has a very colonial feel to it. We went straight to bed when we arrived and had a few hours sleep before heading to the verandah for a fantastic breakfast of fried eggs in a bready basket, 2 sausages and a whole platter of fruit. Absolutely delicious!

Then we went off to explore. The fort is quite small but very picturesque. A tall wall runs around the majority of the old town, with historic buildings dotted everywhere and churches of every denomination. The little shops are fabulously tacky, full of statues of elephants (which we of course purchased), postcards, magnets, all the usual crap that Matt hates and I adore. I bought a pair of light weight trousers with elephants on them, and Matt got a similar shirt that he will probably never wear. The restaurants are also wonderful, with delicious curries. We stopped in one such place for lunch. You get a plate of rice and 5 mini dishes of curry including the most commonly eaten Dahl. Yum!

In the afternoon we had a wander over to the international cricket ground, just outside the fortifications. England have played there before. We sat in the stands and a chap who worked there popped to the shop to get us beers. I think the Sri Lankan people may be the friendliest I have ever come across. Galle under 19s were playing Colombo under 19s and they were super good. Apparently 3 have played internationally. The clock in the grounds is stuck on 9.25 which is the time the tsunami hit in 2004. The new town was destroyed but the old town survived because of the walls.

We of course had an afternoon nap and went for a lovely evening stroll around the battlements to watch the sunset. We found a rooftop bar and had a few mojitos and delicious curry for dinner. Mine was a coconut prawn curry and was superb. We got chatting to a retired man and woman who were mates travelling. Jo and Andy had been friends for 30 years, and were very friendly, interesting people. We chatted for the whole evening. Everywhere closes at 10, so we had a fairly early night. A fantastic first day!