Hungry Like The Wolf

We had a good sleep at the C1 Colombo Fort Hotel. It rained most of the night. We woke up early as Singapore is 2.5 hours ahead of Sri Lanka. After freshening up, we walked over to the nearby Dutch Hospital area and found a breakfast buffet for about $7. I would normally avoid a breakfast buffet, but it made sense for us to eat a large breakfast as we were expecting to not eat lunch. In any case, the buffet food was good. I had my first taste of Sri Lankan food and I was hooked! I especially enjoyed the potato curry, which I sopped up with both roti and poori.

The main reason why I chose to stay at C1 Colombo Fort Hotel was because it is a stones throw from the Pagoda Tea Room on Chatham Street where Duran Duran filmed the opening scene of Hungry Like the Wolf. In that scene, Simon Le Bon is seated at a table when a street vendor with a monkey annoys him. He tells the vendor to go away, then he takes off his sunglasses, and then he has a random temper tantrum in which he overturns the table.

Our internet research yielded conflicting information about which unit in Chatham Street the Pagoda Tea House was located. Online evidence suggested it was the Green Cabin, but the empty ground floor unit at the De Mel Building across the street seemed to be the more likely location because the columns resembled the scene in the video. We settled on this as the venue, and Jeff proceeded with his reenactment of the opening scene at the storefront.

After our reenactment, we wandered around the Fort area for a bit before returning to the hotel to get ready for our journey to Galle. The Fort area had an interesting mix of restored and decaying colonial buildings. Some of the colonial buildings were abandoned and had trees growing out of them. The roads weren't in great condition and we had to dodge rainwater filled potholes.

I had initially planned to visit a couple of sights in the Pettah area nearby, but I changed my mind due to the rain and our impending 10.30am train departure.Read more