March 24th, 2024
We had a birthday celebration the night before Colombo for Gin’s birthday. We had the pleasure of celebrating her birthday on the 21/22 world cruise and she wanted to repeat the dinner.
Small party of 7 and all of us from the 21/22 world cruise
We had a late sail into Sri Lanka so we had a regular morning on board playing Mah Jongg and eating lunch with our friends in the World Cafe. The sail in was nothing special and the port we were docked in was industrial so you could not just get off and walk into town. We had an excursion in the afternoon which was a tour of Colombo by Tuk-Tuk which is the main form of transportation. We went by bus through town to a meeting place for the Tuk-Tuks, 2 per vehicle. The ship’s tour had reserved 50 of them..
Our line of Tuk Tusk
The Tuk-Tuks are a nice change from all the motor scooters in Bali, Vietnam and Thailand. Since it was a Sunday the traffic was minimal and it was also a holiday, the full moon celebration, for Buddhists,but everyone celebrates.
Tuk-Tuks are everywhere
They drove us all over town pointing out interesting landmarks like the US Embassy and some of the 5 star hotels.
We stopped at a park that had a zoo attached to it. We walked across the park.Some of our fellow passengers complained about the heat and distance.
The park had tons of trees and they were quite old.
They had elephants at the park from the zoo While we were at the park we saw this snake. They claimed it was a grass snake but it was big and they chased it away from the elephants.
During our drive we passed this person having a birthday and this couple who just got married.
All our Tuk-Tuks lined up waiting for us as we visited different sites. Our driver was very good and would always come find us and escort us back to the right vehicle.
During the ride we could see that rain was coming. You could see the dark clouds in the back ground.
It started pouring on our ride and it was quite a downpour for about 15 minutes. The streets flooded quickly.
Me looking out of our Tuk-Tuk Us in the Tuk-Tuk and our driver
The ride was about 2 hours and even with the rain it really was a lot of fun. It was a great way to see the city.
After the Tuk-Tuk ride we got back on the bus and the last part of the tour was supposed to be a short walk to a Buddhist Temple and a Mosque. When the guide on the bus explained what was next several people said they just wanted to go back to the port. It was still drizzling a little but people complained it was too hot even though the rain had cooled the temperature down some.
The guide compromised and had the bus driver drop off 5 of us that were up for the walk and then took the rest back to the port and would come back and get us.
The Buddhist Temple The Red Mosque
Downtown Colombo.
We made it back to the boat around 5:30 and we realized that the tour we had scheduled for day 2 in Colombo pretty much repeated all the places we had been on today’s tour so we turned in our tour tickets and figured we would play it by ear for day 2.
There is a huge building in town call the The Lotus Tower and it has a restaurant on top and an observation deck. It lights up[ at night so we went up on deck to see the the tower.
The Lotus Tower at night
We have another day in Colombo and we are picking up lots of supplies here for our sail to Africa. There is also a small market outside the boat on the dock that we want to check out on day 2.