Tuna
Wednesday 28 August 2013
Today was out last day of our tour. We get on a plane tomorrow and started heading home.
Since we were up and ready by 9am this morning, and we weren’t being collected until 11am, we decided to walk down the street and around the corner to the National Museum. On the map it only looked like it would take about 20 minutes. We also figured that as it was in the morning it shouldn’t have heated up too much yet. See we are learning.
However …..
We didn’t learn enough, as it was really hot outside. We should have caught a tuk-tuk.
So by the time we got to the Natural History Museum we were a bit cooked. The museum is in a big white concrete building, we were hoping it was nicely air-conditioned. Oops, wrong again. There were some ceiling fans so we moved from fan to fan to look at the displays. The Natural History Museum is rather dated and some of the stuff animals are looking really manky. We made it to the final room, which was blissfully air-conditioned. We spent a lot of time there.
Finally deciding we could deal with the heat again, we wandered out and into the Art Gallery. Just one long room in a nice little building. The building isn’t air-conditioned, the paintings are hanging on walls where natural light falls on them, the walls have water-stains on them and one of the paintings had mould on it. It is a shame, but these pictures will not last another 10 years in these conditions.
Our guide then rang us to say he was outside the Museum, the big white building. So we walked back to the Natural History Museum only to find that he wasn’t anywhere in sight. We then wandered around a bit and came across another big white (quite beautiful) building that also was a museum. I think we should have gone in that one. There was Ernest waiting for us. We couldn’t quite bring ourselves to tell him we went into the other museum.
It was time for our tour of Colombo. First stop was independence square. This was built to celebrate their independence from the Poms. Hurrah!
We went for a drive through Cinnamon Gardens, the posh suburb where all the rich and powerful live. It is also where a lot of important military offices are located. I didn’t think I should take any photos as there were men in military fatigues every 50m holding a very big automatic gun.
Next we drove through the suburb of Fort, which is where the old British fort was and is now the Port, but full of Dutch things too. It is a lovely old church that seemed today, to be the spot for a local school to have a social outing. All the little girls, not so shyly, said hello and waved to us as we walked around the church.
Final stop was lunch, of course. A great vegetarian restaurant and our last real Sri Lankan meal.
