Day 99 – April 24 – Colombo, Sri Lanka

About 6:15a.m., the shipped moved from the cargo berth where we had spent the night to the passenger terminal.  It was much closer to the town and they had worked to make it appear very nice.  They had plants and small shops separating the passengers from the working cargo port.

We decided to take the shopping excursion, The Treasure Hunt – a shopping opportunity.  We visited three different kinds of shops as well as driving around the center of the city to see some of the main monuments and sites.  The three stops were a Jewelry Store, a handicraft store and finally a department store.  While we bought several things at each store, they were not large stores but it was a pleasant way to see the center of the city.

Again, we were impressed about how clean the city is.  It was a Sunday so the traffic was much better and it was still in the end of the New Year’s Celebration.  We saw a runners marathon, a tug of way, and families in the park where you could see the kids having foot races.

It did pour rain while we were at the Department Store, but it all but stopped when we had to get back on our bus.  So we did enjoy the shorter excursion and the shopping.

Tonight we had Jim and Pepper come over to our suite where we had a Champagne Tasting.  We opened three bottles of different Champagne, actually sparking wine in the “methode tranditonaelle” from Chandon in Australia.  We opened a brut, a sweeter white sparkling, and a Shariz that was still in the “methode tranditionelle”, i.e. it had bubbles.  Rajib had arranged a nice spread of various canapés complete with white table cloth and champagne cooler buckets.  We spent a nice evening tasting the various champagnes, munching on the canapés and finally ordered desert from Compass Rose to finish everything off.  It was fun!

So we leave Sri Lanka and would have to say we were very impressed with the country.  True, it still has along way to go and hopefully they can resolve the issues remaining between the Singalese and the Tamils without another armed conflict.  But the country is beautiful and there are many things to see and enjoy.  They are beginning to develop their beaches which are beautiful.  The people are friendly and seem to care about their environment as shown by the cleaniness of the cities, towns and countryside.  While we do not know that we will ever be back in this area of the world, we certainly would encourage others to see Sri Lanka.