Sunday 3rd November 2024

What a bizarre experience today brought for us. Sandra had arranged for us to take a double decker tour of Colombo, so we had a pretty early breakfast, and Shehara, the sister of Sandra's son-in-law, Sahan, drove us into the centre of Colombo where we were to catch the bus. There was only one other party of 12 booked on the bus, but they had caught a sickness bug overnight, and so they were 'purging', which I must admit was a new addition today to my vocabulary.

As these 12 folk were 'purging' away, it left just Valerie and me on the bus! Can you believe that we took a 2 hour city tour of Colombo on our own double decker bus! It was hilarious, as Michael Fernando, our tour guide and commentator still took it ultra-seriously (absolutely refusing to go off-script), and as we set off said: 'Ladies and gentlemen, we are commencing our tour of Colombo ...', and at the end said: 'I would like to thank you all for touring with us today ...!

It was, indeed, a very interesting tour, as you will see from the photos below, because we took in all the major sights of the city, with a long break in the middle, where we went to the Gangaramaya Temple - the main Buddhist Temple in Colombo, and the most important one in Sri Lanka, after the Temple of the Tooth in Kandy. The chief Buddhist Monk died 3 months ago, so there was a huge ceremony there today to mark the end of 3 months of mourning for him.

Our rather unique city tour of Colombo completed, Shehara met us again to take us to Selyn's newest boutique outlet in one of the major shopping malls, where Sandra was busy sorting out a window display! We had a drink with her, then returned to Selyna's house for lunch, and a relaxing afternoon, before ending our weekend with a coffee at a rather nice establishment, then being driven back in the car by Ravi on a rather long, drizzly journey back to Kurunegala.

Today's photographs focus completely on today's very unique city tour of Colombo, where, with the driver, Michael - the tour guide and commentator - and his lovely assistant, who brought the drinks and snacks round, there were more staff on board than passengers (with a bus touring company that, rather ironically, prides itself on 'Driving Sustainable Tourism')! As you can imagine, we both took so many photos that I have only been able to pick out a few of the highlights for you today, or you could have ended up with 40+ photographs!





















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