April 16

Well, wow, it's been three days since I blogged!!! Oppsie🤭! 

So let's back up a bit, Sunday the 14th. We got to see many of you. The main big meal we had was the leftover tuna steak, chopped up and put in pasta with some herbed gouda cheese, and a garlic mayo sauce we made. Every afternoon/evening seems to be rainy here, not good for sunset viewing☹️.

Monday the 15th, we got out and about. But shops around here in Dehiwala, a “suburb” of Colombo still seemed closed. However, we did find a Dialog Shop open and got my phone set up with a sim card. So I have a Sri Lankan phone number. Jeff has an e-sim, but no local number. We are still working out our best “fit” when it comes to phone plans – as we are not convinced e-sims are for us. Jeff seems to have been able to our e-extensions, for 90 days, here in Sri Lanka. He got a confirmed screen, but we have not paid yet – processing takes three business days. We also went out for take away pizza from a local place. It wasn't great, but it was hot, gooey, and good!

Now today, we really set out for exploration – as I was getting a bit stir-crazy. We went to the Colombo National Museum and National Museum of Natural History with a tuk-tuk we hired. We opted for the combo ticket-pass. This allows discounted rates if you want to do both, and we did. When we arrived, a big group was entering the Colombo National Museum (CNM), so we went to the Natural History one.

The museum involved endemic Sri Lankan flora and fauna. It was a bit of a disappointment. The museum was outdated, but informative. The stuffed animal displays had definitely seen better days. They did have an elephant skeleton and a blue whale skeleton, that were impressive. Also, the had a leopard exhibited that was to have killed 11 people before being destroyed and stuffed. We finished this museum and went to the CNM.

This museum is in a large, white, colonial-looking building. It has 15 huge rooms with all manner of displays pertaining to Sri Lanka. I could take pictures in here!?! The first room was of recovered artifacts of Sri Lankan Royalty that had been taken by the Dutch, when they conquered this land. The items had been in the Rijksmuseum (we may have seen them when we visited there in Amsterdam), and were just recently returned. This room alone was impressive and made the museum worth the visit! It had a gold-gilded ceremonial cannon in the center of the room. There were also various hand swords/daggers that belonged to different Sri Lankan past kings. The swords were overlaid with silver and/or gold and studded with gems – very intricate and ornate.

Then there were rooms of Buddhism and Hinduism, explaining the religions and some of the gods, with various statues. Another thing of note they had like a Rosetta Stone, but not really. It had three languages Chinese, Tamil, and Persian, but they are not the same. The Chinese has to do with blessings to Buddha and offerings given to a temple in the Mountain of Ceylon; the Tamil portion is blessings of Hindu gods and ritual items sent to Sri Lanka; and the Persian section is the blessings of the “light of Islam” and offerings to Allah. The importance of the slab stone is dealing with the ancient Silk Route of the Sea, pertaining to Sri Lanka. 

Then there were rooms displaying jewelry, pottery, and more swords. There was a room displaying the Royal Seat, which was donated to the a king by the Dutch. But this time English were the “baddies” and after conquering here took this seat, and other royal items: scepter, sword, etc. They items were returned in 1934 and 1936.  Also a room of traditional dress of Tamil, Sinhala, and Malay… including a set of traditional Dutch dress – I found this interesting to be included. Another room of Sri Lankan linens and textiles. I found out Sri Lanka used to export these along with quality dyes. Then a couple of rooms with so many items that were with engraved Ivory. Two Ivory carvings I really liked were here. The first: bullocks pulling a cart with men. The second: a man in a palanquin(?). They were both so detailed, beautiful.

Wow! It was a great and informative museum. I enjoyed it quite a bit. But by the end we were 'museumed' out! We left with good impressions though. We went to a nice park close by. It was pretty and some people were taking advantage of some shade, but now, we need food! We headed to a Sri Lankan Restaurant but it was still closed, maybe for the New Year?

So we found an alternative (as in it was next door😂 to the one Jeff had picked), Coco Veranda. We had a Beef Roti Kottu dish and a Kochi Sausage Fried Rice dish. Both were excellent had the right amount of zing!! We also split a chocolate milk shake. From here we walked to the ocean, then Jeff hired another tuk-tuk to get us back close to our place. We got out early to stop at the Pharmacy – Jeff is a wee sinus congested, like as in hay fever congestion. As we were walking back from here it started to sprinkle on us – it is afternoon!

Back, it was siesta time. What a great venture. Plan on light supper. Great day in Sri Lanka.