Back to Colombo

Last giant breakfast at our guesthouse before heading to the train station. The train was at around 9:50am and had only been to one stop prior, so we hoped it wouldn't be too crowded, but there was a huge number of people at the station, mostly tourists.

As the train pulled in I barged through the crowd and jumped on while it was still moving, Sri Lankan style, and managed to get us a couple of seats albeit not together. Trains here get extremely crowded and for many services you can't actually reserve seats at all. I was sitting at first next to an older English lady who'd been travelling here for three weeks as a long stopover on her way to Melbourne to see her daughter and grandson, so we had a good chat about various things.

She hopped off in Galle so Shandos was able to eventually sit next to me for the rest of the trip. Still just glad we had seats, since some people who got on at the same stop as us had to stand all the way to Colombo - three hours! Yikes.

Our hotel this time was over in an expat and embassy sort of district. Much calmer and quieter than our previous place, and quite a bit nicer too. Went out for a wander around, where we saw the Independence Hall (where Sri Lanka's independence docs were signed), as well as a few other cultural institutions like the museum, the art gallery and stuff.

Expensive foreigner tickets, so we skipped them all and eventually headed home.

In the evening we headed out for dinner at a nearby Indian restaurant, with someone Shandos knew from Instagram. She was Belgian, but has been living here for the last six months. She also brought along her dachshund, Chuck! Very cute, and he just sat quietly on her lap for the duration of the meal - tasty Indian food.Read more