Anthony and Katey Curnow

We set off after a late breakfast of mini chippolata style “chicken” snags, extremely salty bacon and a delicious omelette, heading into Cinammon Gardens using our first Uber ride. What a bargain!

Our first stop was The Good Market, a sustainability focused market attracting local expats. Prices were at a premium, with many attractive nik naks on offer. Children’s clothes, handmade toys, carved coconut wares, and heaps of delicious smelling food. One lady was offering devilled, sugared and natural cashews, as well as some freshly squeezed cashew milk sweetened with a local honey. It was yum, and so refreshing in the heat and extreme humidity of the morning.

The fort area has some impressive old colonial buildings, a clock tower and a lighthouse. Oddly though, the lighthouse now sits inland. In front of it lies the huge Marina Square development (part of Port City), currently a large vacant piece of land (269ha of reclaimed sea) ready for its luxury high rise condos, marinas and more. Check it out on google maps - it’s similar in nature to the development in places like Dubai.

Wandering through the fort area, we saw this huge tall brass chandelier inside the historic Central Point building, dropping five levels through its central staircase shaft. It was super impressive, and said to be the largest in south east asia. A strong coffee at Java Lounge (advertised as using Starbucks coffee beans), a visit to the local tourist hot spot trinket souvenir stores, and a viewing of the candy cane looking Red Mosque, we jumped into another tuk tuk to Galle Face Green.

Arriving to what is more like Galle Face Dusty-Brown-with-patches-of-Green, the sight that welcomed us took us back to the balloons in Cappadocia. Although instead of balloons, kites of all shapes, sizes and colours bobbed around in the sea strewn winds. Below the kites, hundreds of locals wandered amongst vendors selling snacks, inflatable toys, kites and other associated paraphernalia. The sun was hiding behind the clouds after the tropical downpour earlier in the day, and the heavy ocean waves rolled up to the stone retaining wall. The clouds slowly turning shades of pastel orange, and the buzz of everything happening around us made us feel further from home than we’d felt this whole trip.

And then, after a magical day of emergence into the city like locals, we were rapidly reminded of our tourist status...

We selected Nana Chef’s Halal snack food stall for dinner as there were quite a few other patrons, and were ushered to our seats overlooking the sun as it set into the Laccadive Sea. The waiter showed us one by one what was on offer, all neatly displayed behind glass. We were instantly swooped up in the excitement of our seaside barbecue.

The food arrived and albeit minimalist, and the beef skewers needing further evolution of my jaw and inscisors, it was tasty. We washed our hands and cleansed the prawn smell with a squeeze of lime, then asked for the bill. On presentation, I nearly fell over. It was the equivalent of about $30aud, which is 5 star accomodation prices. I was so shocked and still riding the wave of our meal by sunset, that we paid quickly and began to leave. A minute up the promenade and I was fuming and a local passer by knew it - ‘I think he just ripped you off no? I heard the bill was more than 3000 rupees.’ He said.
I replied, ‘you think so? What would it normally cost?’ To which he responded with half the amount at most. I was reeling. Not at the cost, but at being taken advantage of. After a few expletives I decided to confront the business. I turned around, and made a beeline for the waiter.

‘Could I see the bill again? It was very expensive..’ I said trying to be diplomatic. He said he’d thrown the bill out already and with that, begun scribbling on his notepad, stopping half way through to say ‘you want a discount?’
‘Yeh I want a discount, it was too expensive and not right, we have never paid this much’, to which he responded as he fumbled over small rupee notes, ‘ah tourist prices you know, it’s must.’ And I said ‘nah it’s not, more of a discount’ as he slid me an additional yet tokenistic 100 rupee note. We were able to reduce the bill by a fifth, but hardly enough considering my sudden dissatisfaction with the meagre meal.

We walked away, with some reprise knowing that we’d done our best to keep the system as honest as it can be. My next move will be a scathing google review. As we approached the line of tuk tuks, we debated whether or not we should just grab another Uber home, something we’d only discovered existed here this morning. Instead we opted for a tuk tuk with meter as it’s usually about the same price.

Approaching the first tuk tuk in line, and telling him we wanted to go to Malabe (it’s about 30 mins from town), he appeared uninterested, to which another guy appeared and said ‘no problem sir, follow me’. We turned around, started to follow towards his tuk tuk when all of a sudden the first guy ran after us - they just erupted at each other and we found ourselves in the middle of a heated tuk tuk driver argument. The originally disinterested driver agreed to our destination, so we walked towards his tuk tuk as they continued berating one another. It was rather intense and we very nearly began to walk away altogether.

Once in the tuk tuk, we started off. Two minutes in and the driver started saying something about ‘petrol’ and ‘5 minutes’. We said ok, and he swung the tuk tuk around the wrong corner (we always track everything with our own phones - thanks google). Two minutes up the road and at the moment me saying ‘wrong way!’ we pulled into what looked like a pawn shop with mountains of jewellery inside, and a line of tuk tuks out front. ‘Ah’ I thought, he’d taken us to a place where he would gain commission from any purchases we make, offsetting the cost of his return from our distant accomodation. A stern ‘no thanks’ and we were back on track, arriving tired and emotionally worn out from our few hours of emergence in Colombo’s tourist money wangling environment.

The following day, we stuck to Uber’s, travelling only to the department store Odel and the new shopping mall so very creatively named Colombo City Centre. We were on a hunt for a carry on piece of luggage to haul our increasing pile of goodies that we’ve collected along our travels. After some googling, we decided to continue with the haul of plastic bags given the excessive price that they were asking for old stock, that can be purchased in Aus for up to 75% off. Arriving back to our friend Rennie (who has looked after us so well with our British style breakfasts at Villa Jasmine Breeze), we waited for Suwadi’s driver to arrive (Dean), who then drove us some 4 hours to Habanara. Expecting them to turn back around and head into the darkness with wild elephants risking traffic on the toad, they decided to stay the night at the hotel and join us for breakfast before returning home. We are eternally grateful for Suwadi and his community’s generosity over the past few days.Read more