People on hooks

Above: Chance encounter with a Vel procession. Look at the hooks on his back and thighs.

Today our exploration of Sri Lanka comes to an end as we head back to Colombo. We drove from Nuwara Eliya back to the capital via the bridge where the movie Bridge on the River Kwai was filmed. But we didn’t pay attention and missed the bridge.  The scenery was very green once again, especially at the beginning when leaving Nurwara Eliya.

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It was a long six hour drive including stops for lunch and a chance encounter with Tamil Hindu procession.  Keerthi described the procession as a Vel Procession heading to a temple. It was a surprise for me to see people hanging on hooks. In Malaysia, Tamil Hindus hook or pierce themselves with kavadi in the form of coconuts, lime, carry-frames or chariots-on-tow. This was kinda the reverse; a reverse kavadi if you like.

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The roads were bad and windy for much of the journey. There were some mad drivers and quite a few wandering dogs too. As we approached Colombo the traffic was dense. It was slow around the CBD areas before we were dropped off at the Galle Face Hotel.

We had chosen this old character hotel by the sea, dating back to 1864, for a different experience. Supposedly, it is the oldest hotel east of the Suez Canal. In its current condition, I likened it to Raffles Hotel in Singapore before its refurbishment.  The public areas of the hotel were quite nice but our room was very old, run-down, basic and a let-down.  Management know it and there has been a series of refurbishments:

• Apparently the North Wing where we stayed had been refurbished in the 1970s.
• The South Wing had been closed for 40 years and was currently being refurbished.  [Edit: Refurbishment was completed in 2006.]
• [Edit: The North Wing was completely refurbished in 2015 and the South Wing updated a little later.]

Furniture in the public areas and in-room were of a colonial style and very in keeping with the age of the hotel.  I liked the Dutch carved wooden furniture with spliced woven cane as they are cool and comfortable to sit on in this tropical humidity and heat.

The hotel faces the Galle Face Green, a waterfront park. Today, with strong winds, the waterfront area was pongy with lots of seaspray.

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Our attempt to go for a walk was met with a torrential downpour. Second time around, we were more successful. We went to the Holiday Inn and then a little further, in search of a bank but it was too late in the day.

We took a tuk-tuk back and swam in the hotel’s salt water pool. We finished our Sri Lanka stopover with a nice dinner in the hotel’s Verandah restaurant overlooking the sea.