Saturday, March 15. Very warm, F 91.
We four were off the ship and in a cab within 15 minutes of being on land. The cab was a very nice air-conditioned 10 passenger late model van. The driver, Sumith, had command of the English language well enough for him to be an informative guide for the day.
He gave us a brief tour of this, in my opinion, a very clean and well organized city. There are many great buildings left from 'British Time' when they left in 1948, some 66 years ago and that sense of order seems to remain. The traffic however is anything but orderly. There is not a frightening amount of traffic, but what there is seem to play a game of lane-switching and cutting-off, continually. However horns are not blaring and we never saw any bashed up vehicles.
Our mission today was to get out in the country and see tea plantations, tea processing and rubber plantations. I suppose, unfortunately that we all had an expectation level in our head. In my opinion we did not meet at least my expectation level but we did see all that we had on the list, and more; we experienced the flavour and colour of Sri Lankan life for a few hours.
Generally, the day surpassed my expectations of life here generally. The port is massive, bustling and expanding. There were no visible beat up cars or tuk-tuks on the streets that I could see and everybody on the streets looked confident and went about their affairs without fear, even girls/women walking in areas that looked a little frightening to me, in the rural areas.
There is no smoking or drinking in public and prostitutes are outlawed, however we did not get into those things at length. Various religions seem to co-exist without conflict and our driver confirmed that. All-in-all it was a good day, but we have had so many that I cannot rave about them all, so I am being honest.
We got back to the ship around 1.30, famished, washed up, went to the Lido for food and back off the ship to visit the shops set up at dockside. A few minor purchases were made by Doug and Fellette, not sure on Jim and Gail. We two came back to our cabin and collapsed. After a couple of hours of rest I looked at the pictures, did the blog and showered and got cleaned up for dinner.
We sailed at 6.00 for the Seychelles, some 3 1/2 days sail away, complete with razor wire around the deck as the captain promised and I can only assume that the charged fire hoses, sound weapons and security guards are ready to go as well.
Nautical sayings in everyday usage:
Windfall: A sudden unexpected rush of wind from a mountainous shore which allowed a ship more leeway.
Pics.
- A Hindu Temple we visited.
- G and F ready to enter temple.
- Being briefed by driver at the National Monument built commemorating independence.
- Buddha Statue.
- Buddhist Temple.
- Rubber tree tapped.
- Tea pickers.
- Tea Factory.
- Three with tea garlands, given accidentally!!!
- Tea pickers.
- Tea signs.
- Tea grinder.
- Tea drier, wood fired.
- Gail
- Tea sorter.
- Women construction workers.
- Fire wood for tea factory.
- Tuk-Tuk traffic.
- Razor wire for pirates, [and reassurance of passengers no doubt].
- Our tea purchases.
I sure wouldn't want to be the one to hang or collect that razor wire!
ReplyDeleteNice pics of the temple and details!