Day 21 - May 25, 2018 Colombo & Negombo, Sri Lanka

Colombo is a city of traffic chaos.  There are traffic jams all over the city.  It's not that other places in Sri Lanka are better but in a city of 6 million people, it's very stressful.  To drive a mere few kms would take 20-30 mins.  On top of the traffic jams, you have to watch out for motorcycles and tuk-tuks dashing out in front of you.  There is no right-of-way to speak of.  The rule seems to be whoever gets there first has the right of way!  So people would just randomly do U-turn in the middle of the road or they would cut in front of you when merging from a side street expecting you'll make way for them.

We walked around the old fort area of Colombo this morning.  There is nothing much left of the old fort, just a few buildings remained.  Most of the buildings are occupied by banks and government offices.  There is no escape from the giant ugly port that dominates the skyline.  This is part of the one road one belt initiative from China who funded the construction of giant container port which serves as transloading facility between Europe and China/East Asia.  There are constructions of highrises everywhere.  China's investments are evident everywhere.

We moved on to our last stop in Sri Lanka, Negombo, which is located about an hour drive north of Colombo.  Most people stay here on their first day or last day in the country.  The Colombo International Airport is located just next to Negombo.  Negombo is also a fishing town with lots of colorful fishing boats.  It also is known as "Little Rome" because of its many churches here.  I'm not used to see Jesus's statues everywhere after being in Sri Lanka for so long where Buddha's image is all over.

Negombo has long stretches of beach but unfortunately garbages are everywhere.  It is sad to see people have not grasp the concept of clean environment and lack of understanding that plastic is not biodegradable.

Day 19-20 - May 23-24, 2018 Galle & Colombo, Sri Lanka

After more than a week of touring the country side of Sri Lanka, we had finally looped back to the bigger towns on its southwest coast.  Galle is a coastal fort city built by the Portugese around 1500 and then took over by the Dutch and later took over yet by the British.  Our hotel is right inside the old fort and it's been only recently converted into a three room small hotel.  We chose to explore the fort early next morning due to the evening rain.

Galle and the whole southwest coast are in the wettest zone of the island.  The monsoon came early this year and the news reported 7 people had already died from flooding near Colombo.  We were both awaken during the night by the strong downpour.  Luckily, the rain stopped by early morning which allowed us to stroll around the fort.

To our surprise, the streets were already very busy at 8 o'clock in the morning and there were especially many many brides and grooms everywhere taking wedding photos in traditional and modern dresses and costumes.  We noticed here and in India as well that wedding is a big business.  It's very elaborate and there are advertizing billboards everywhere regarding wedding planning and reception halls rentals!

The 120 km drive from Galle to Colombo would now take 2 hours instead of 5 hours because we've taken the only highway in the country joining Colombo and Matara.  This is built with Chinese financial aids.  If more highways can be built linking different parts of Sri Lanka, it would definitely help their economy by helping the movement of people and goods.

We visited the Colombo National Museum and it gave us a good summary of Sri Lankan history and consolidated what we had seen these past several days.  Colombo is not the prettiest city and the constant traffic really cut down the appeal of this Port city.  We then had the most expensive dinner of the trip: mud crab which shell is even harder than those of lobster!

Day 18 - May 22, 2018 Tangalle, Sri Lanka

Today is all about wildlife and we crossed another item on our bucket list.  An early 5:30a morning started with a safari tour of Yala National Park.  This park is one of the premier parks in Sri Lanka and is teemed with wildlife like spotted deers, wild hogs, wild water buffalos, wild elephants, crocodiles, pythons, and the only park in the country to spot the elusive leopards!  There's also a great variety of birds: peacocks, hawks, plus Sri Lanka's national bird, National Fowl, which is similar to common chicken except its colors are far deeper and prettier.

The roads inside the park are so run down that even Jeeps are barely able to function.  We picked the Kataragamuwa entrance to avoid the crowds.  Still, once inside, Jeeps loaded with tourists roam across the park.  The funny thing is once someone spotted rare animals, they would call each other on cell phones and soon everyone would congregate in the same spot with no room to move.  We are not allowed to leave the vehicle since all animals are wild and unpredictable so we have to patiently wait for other Jeeps to finish photographing before moving forward.  Our Jeep driver actually drove BACKWARDS for over few kms in order to save time to beat the crowds to a spot where a leopard was sighted.  While everyone was trying to take photos of a far far away spot where the leopard was supposedly lying under a tree, we could swear it's only wishful thinking!

The highlight is an unexpected face to face meeting of a mother with a baby, and her toddler elephants.  It was so close that I was afraid that she may come in the Jeep!  The baby is so very cute and obedient to the mom and would follow her every moves.

We checked in to our best hotel near Tangalle right on the beach.  Sri Lanka is best known for its endless beach, especially to European tourists.  We met another German couples who only stayed at the beach for 8 days without seeing the rest of the wonderful country.  What a waste!  There are beaches everywhere that the beach in front of our hotel was literally deserted.  We have the whole beach to ourselves!

This evening came one of the highlights of our whole trip - trying to watch sea turtles laying eggs!  Rekawa Beach is the best spot in Sri Lanka to watch sea turtles coming to shore and dig a deep hole to lay her 150-200 eggs before burying them with sand and hiding her tracks, then leaving back to ocean.  We were really lucky to see this amazing event tonight with 3 turtles coming on shore.  Our tuk-tuk driver came and mad-dashed to the close by beach once he had confirmed sighting of turtles.  We have missed this events time and time again due to weather, tide, season, or too crowded with tourists in other places since 2004 in Costa Rica.  And we finally came face to face with a sea turtle up close laying eggs.  Such effort and determination from an animal who is used to move around in water!  Speechless and standing in awe!