World Cruise 2015: Day 69 – March 15, 2015

Today we were in Colombo Sri Lanka (Ceylon). Colombo is the capital of Sri Lanka, once the home to over a dozen ancient kingdoms, then a colony of the Portuguese, Dutch and finally the British. Colombo is a port town on the Indian Ocean, with wide stretches of urban beaches. There are Buddhist and Hindu temples, mosques and colonial churches all within blocks of each other. Tea was long the country’s mainstay export and it still a very important part of the culture, as is another adapted British favorite: cricket. We have seen a lot of cricket down here. One of the people we paly trivia with has started watching it in earnest and is trying to explain it to us. They also have these small little cars (cabs) that take two people and they are called Tuk-tuks. They have three wheels and are in a lot of these ports. They weave in and out of the traffic. Speaking of which there is plenty here and we are here on a Sunday. Apparently the Prime Minister of India is visiting here today. We had a friend that was going to go on the golf excursion and it got cancelled because he was going to use the course.

Today we did no temples, museums or churches. We went to a beach at Mount Lavinia Beach Resort. It was a hotel that was built at the end of the 1800’s and is gorgeous. The inside is all marble and brass. They had a beautiful pool and a great beach. We went to the beach and got into a very warm Indian Ocean. We then just lay there on the beach and read. We came back and did a little shopping at the shops on the pier (Steve now has a bunch of new, very inexpensive shirts), and we are getting good at bargaining. It was a great contrast to the bustling around that we have been doing. We now have a day at sea and then we are in India. First Cochin and then Mumbai. Back to temples, mosques, churches and museums.

Monday – noticed when we walked this morning that water canons have been placed on deck 3 (Promenade) as the first part of the defensive measures the ship takes for pirates. We understand that they put barbed wire on deck 3 also. Will keep you all updated.

Here are the pictures from today.

One of their gorgeous painted boats

Harbor with lighthouses

Buddhist museum in progress (looks like an inverted bell – stupa)

Downtown Colombo

Beach in city (with the palm tree)

American Embassy – tall white office building

Churches (quite a few)

Tuk-tuk

Canal downtown (probably from Dutch)

Mosques

Beach and hotel we went to (big white building, long wide beach)