It was a good decision to visit Colombo on the last day. We did bask in some colonial luxury at the Galle Face Hotel, breathing the sea air and sipping beer. However, Colombo, like any other city, is not a place where I would want to spend too much time.
The train ride from Waikkal to Colombo was reminiscent of the Indian trains of the late 80s complete with the small cardboard tickets with embossed serial numbers. A one way ticket cost us only 120 Lankan rupees while the return cab ride cost 5200!
At Colombo station, the tourist office suggested we hire a tuk tuk for sightseeing. Promptly, there appeared a driver who claimed to speak English but quickly switched to Tamil which we understood, mostly. He had an eerie resemblance to the tourist office man. I don’t have the heart to describe everything we saw. The photographs give you a rough idea.
A man we met at the ATM, Shiva, offered to accompany us to the bus stand for the return journey. After discovering that traveling by bus would involve another taxi ride nearer our destination, we decided to take a cab all the way. Shiva used his Pickme app to call one, waiting until it arrived. He even asked us to call him after reaching our hotel!
So, let me close this series with a big thank you to all the lovely people of Sri Lanka, especially those who helped us, often going out of their way to do so. Thank you also to our faithful friend, the frog who followed us all the way from Jaffna. He was last seen in our bathroom.
I hope you have enjoyed reading it all as well as viewing the photographs. I didn’t get a lot of time to proof read or edit before posting. Apologies for errors and omissions.
Ayu Bhavan.
gopistory.com 
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