D70 Sri Lanka - Kandy to Colombo

Seeing as the Royal Classic was hosting not one, but TWO weddings today (both starting at 10am!), we were almost glad to be heading off elsewhere. We said our goodbyes, found our driver (same guy as our tea day) and headed off towards Mawana, a small village on the outskirts of Colombo.
Anthony’s colleague from school, Suwadi, had invited us several months ago to a family wedding here, and was insistent that we come to his house today to meet the family.

It was a pretty uneventful 4-hour journey, and as Vilmer wasn’t familiar with the rural village we were heading to (despite Anthony’s persevering attempts to help him with Google maps) it took us a bit longer to find the house, which turned out to be a massive compound in the middle of the village. Suwadi was there waiting to welcome us in the traditional Muslim attire and we quickly realised that this wasn’t just a small gathering. There were people setting up fairy lights on the house, getting pagodas set up and kids running underfoot. As we were led through the house (which belonged to his sister-in-law, whose daughter was getting married), we were met by what felt like a hundred people - cooks, family members and friends - most of which were women who had come for the ‘henna day’ and to see the bride. Apparently the festivities had stared around 11am and so far, they had accomodated and fed several “waves” of women, another wave to come later. Due to this being a small village wedding, apparently it was customary to invite pretty much the whole village to the wedding, so an incredible amount of food had been prepared.

Suwadi’s lovely wife Kareema brought us some ginger tea and nibbles to help us “relax from the long journey” and later in the afternoon we sat down to enjoy a home style curry and rice spread for our lunch. It’s probably a good thing we don’t live here permanently as the social pressure to heap more and more rice and sides onto your plate (while many a watching eye was on you) was almost too much to bare. But it was totally worth it as the meal was delicious - we enjoyed a beef curry, a breadfruit curry, an eggplant curry, maldive fish sambal, and rice. Oh, and a sweet of course!
Whilst we were finishing our food an older lady commented on my hands saying that they would look lovely with a henna design, so before I knew it Kareema had whisked me away to another room! Here I was introduced to a family friend who was a “specialist in henna art” and for the next 30 minutes she proceeded to paint “whatever comes to mind” onto both my hands, and it was so beautiful I wanted to cry! But I didn’t - I just tagged her on Instagram instead.

As luck would have it, given my hands were still wet, Suwadi suggested we go on a short drive into the village so he could show us his property and his old school.
Our first stop was to visit the warehouse that he built years ago but now leases to a man who runs the most successful textiles business in Mawana, which is quite the competitive business in this village.
Second stop was Al-Mubarak National School, the biggest school in the area, also where Suwadi had completed his schooling. Unfortunately we couldn’t get in due to school being finished for the day, and the office staff weren’t contactable despite Suwadi’s efforts to bypass security.
Lastly we were taken to Suwadi’s house that is currently leased by a smaller Primary School. As the lease ends next year, he is debating what he will do with this land, plus the land he owns adjacent. Being such a small village, it was very much “This is my mother’s house, this is her brother’s house, my grandfather lived here, his cousin was next door...”, so not too much privacy!

The remainder of the evening was spent meeting more family, including some of the closer male relations, drinking very sweet coffee and tea, eating sweets and chatting. It was hard to pry ourselves away, and as we were leaving we were told that we should get some Kottu Roti on our way to our accomodation. We were resistant to the idea due to our lunch still hanging out in our upper diaphragm...
But sure enough, Suwadi’s driver Dean pulled over and we got a vegetarian serving to take away. It’s so entertaining - makes me want to go and buy some paint scrapers....YouTube Kottu Roti if I’ve lost you at this point!

The villa that we are staying at in Malabe is absolutely beautiful - the owner welcomed us and explained that he used to live here before he converted it, splitting it into 5 villas, plus adding in a pool. It’s typically Sri Lankan style - whitewashed walls with dark wooden beams and minimal trinkets. The housekeeper Rennie kindly heated up our food and the shared portion didn’t last long - once you smell those smells you know you’re in for a good thing!

We’re calling it - this villa is one of the nicest places we’ve stayed in thus far.Read more