Back in Colombo 21 years later

Big vacuum tubes for sale in the Pettah market.
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We arrived to Colombo a few hours after 3 large earthquakes struck in the same region as the 2004 Boxing Day Tsunami. There were no major waves that day, but based on the previous loss of 40,000 people in Sri Lanka, there was plenty of worry. The lady that runs the guesthouse we stayed in in Colombo tried very hard to persuade us to go directly to the hill country and visit Colombo in a few weeks. We were dog-tired since our flight had started at 1:50 am and arrived at about 5am. She agreed to give us a room, but made it very clear that we were responsible for getting ourselves to high ground in case of a tsunami.

Train remains along the tracks on the way to Kandy.
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We gave ourselves a day in Colombo, and we were very pleased to walk around and find such a favorable comparison to India. The streets were so much cleaner and even the rickshaws were in good shape. We visited a fabric shop called Barefoot (by Barbara Sansoni) from Michael’s child hood memories, now turned very successful and branching out to include a great café (our first pork sandwich in 3 months!), a gallery, bookshop, and offering movies on Fridays. That night we ate dinner at the swanky Galle Face Hotel facing the coast, being sprayed by a constant fine mist of salty sea water, slowly drenching our clothes and hair. Last time I, Michael, was here was on my 12^th birthday, and my father half swallowed a seer (type of Mackerel) bone. It nearly killed him, despite a troop of waiters pushing bananas and rice on him to try to dislodge it. We avoided the fish and indulged in beef, having missed it from 2 months in India.

Michael in front of his old home.
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Next day, we caught a train up to Kandy, in the hill country. Erin was quick on the draw and jumped on the train while it was still pulling into the station and secured us some hotly contested seats. The train was moving fast, and she made the leap with her 14 kg bag on!