April 27

Up and around. It was a bit of a rough night – Mosquitos! We had talked with our host last night because there had been a power outage for around 20 minutes. (He was surprised to hear about the mosquitos and offered to bring us a mosquito net last night!!! But we had declined as it was nine pm.) We found the “culprits” or “mosquito breeding stations” this morning. It was some beautiful flower arrangements in our front room. They were in standing water!! We took them outside, which was a shame, but very necessary!☹️ 

Anyway, we were just ready to fix breakfast, when was a knock on our door and breakfast was brought to us!! (It was one of the cleaning ladies from yesterday.) Wow! What a pleasant surprise! It was actual “pancake” hoppers with some sweetened, shaved coconut rolled inside X2 and X2 string hoppers with the same filling. It was good, not too much, and very nice! We finished and went out to explore around. Just a few houses down we saw the mother of our host at her house. She waved and our host, her son came out. We talked a bit. It is convenient they are so close. Now on we go!

First we went to Queen Victoria Park. It was established in 1899! We had to pay, like a dollar seventy, entrance fee (locals were free). It is quite lovely and a bunch of beds of flowers. Right as we entered, there were beds of happy sunflowers! Then the park opened a bit and many beds of all sorts of flowers were around water works – albeit, fountains or a little trickle of water. A gardener struck up a conversation with us, by telling us the name of the flowers at this particular bed – Dahlias. (We already knew, but it was nice!)  He has worked in this park for 25 years. He also said their are 27 gardeners here! The gardener had also said there has not been rain here for five months. We then parted, thanking him, and saying goodbye. Walking along the paths, we heard and saw a few different birds. The park also has a little snack/food place and a kiddie playground area with a good assortment of playground equipment. Then there was a larger pond of water with water lilies but it needed water… we could see that lack of rainfall here! But despite this, the park has been maintained very well.

We left the park, and found the place Jeff had checked out for a scooter rental. The scooters were already checked out for the day but we could come back at six and get one. We will indeed! Now we went to a food court that our tuk-tuk driver had pointed out to us. It was in a little mall, but was for tourists, with tourists prices. We opted out and left. We also passed many local veggie/fruit vendor stalls, seeing a fruit we weren't familiar with, I inquired about it. The vendor said the name – English version is 'Forest Apple.' He gave Jeff and I a sample. We weren't to sold on it but it was nice of him to give us the sample and to try something new. Next, we went by the race track. There is supposed to be a horse race tomorrow – a big event! We put it in our calendar for us to go!

Now we did find local food, as in a food truck, Remarko Express. The truck was right on the side of a busy road. It pulled us in because it advertised shawarmas, but it was too early and did not have them. They did have Kothu – we ordered and split a large Chicken Kothu. Yum!!  😋

Then we found the Keell's Grocery Store and bought the rest of the stuff we hadn't found yesterday. We did the trek back to our place. It is not that far, 0.8 miles, but we did have a load (mostly because of the X2, five liter waters we had). We unloaded our stuff and took a siesta. The weather here is much more pleasant, and tolerable for trekking. That being said, we had rain around five-ish. Our host, Dilhan, brought us a plugin repellent for mosquitos. We told him about the flower arrangements. He nodded understanding about that (hopefully to curtail future issues).

We went out at six and got the scooter. Then settled in for the evening. No visible sunset and plan for bed around ten.