New Years 2017 – Day 16

Today we arrived in Colombo, Sri Lanka, a country that we have never been to before. Colombo is the capital and main port and largest city.  There are reminders of Portuguese, Dutch and British influence found around the city. 

We are yet farther south than yesterday and of course it was HOT!

Our tour today was in a private Tuk Tuk but first we had to walk the length of two football fields to get out of the port.  Then we had to take a taxi to another port entrance to meet our guide/driver.

There are 800,000 people living in Colombo and 400,000 TukTuk's and I think they were all on the road to day.

In our first stop, we saw the train station – it looked like something out of the early 1900’s and was still being used.

Then we traveled through the city to the largest Buddhist Temple and was spectacular.   We also went to see the oldest protestant church in Sri Lanka, a Dutch church.

We kept driving seeing the houses of the very rich and government buildings.   We stopped on the street to taste the juice of a King Coconut, which was a different taste from any coconut we had ever tasted.

We stopped along a main shopping area and walked for about ½ hour before getting back into the Tuk Tuk and going to lunch.

Lunch was at a very nice local restaurant, although it was a little fancier that we have been used to.

After that it was about 45 minutes to get back to the ship and we quickly took showers and we had really been hot.

The show tonight was an individual singer, piano player from Britain and he was very entertaining.

Dinner with Brian and Sandy was very good and then it was on to the casino where Barb broke even and Ed lost.

Tomorrow is the first of 2 more sea days, so hopefully it will be a relaxing day.

Night

Delivery person on the main street

A Mosque

Our Tuk Tuk and Driver/Guide Shane

A large Buddhist Temple

Street food - WOW was it hot

Buying his painting

Prayers inside the Temple