Colombo, Sri Lanka – March 24

Colombo, Sri Lanka – March 24

The Captain had announced the night before the tour that Amsterdam would be docking at a pier in the container port as an Iranian navy ship had taken our pier at the passenger dock. Ok... I guess you don't argue with a ship that has big guns. The port agent arranged for everything to move to our dock and we were greeted by an elephant and some dancers as well as a row of vendors.

This was our second Ensemble Travel Group tour. After the extremely hot and humid weather of the last two ports nine of our passengers decided not to take the tour which meant there were only 29 of us and a little more room on the bus. Since our tour would get back right before the ship was scheduled to sail, as our people checked in with us we gave them their stickers and tickets and just told them to be on the bus at 8:30 and that they could go ahead and hit the vendors. It worked very well, everyone was happy and on the bus on time and we headed off for a tour through the city on the way to the National Museum. Although Sri Lanka is an independent country, it reminds me much of India and much of it is Hindu. There are also Muslims and Buddists as well. The country is trying to rebuild after many years of terrorism and strife. Our guide said that today they all live in peace and harmony.

The national museum was not air conditioned, but it was very interesting. I especially liked that we were given an hour and then cut loose with a time to return to the bus. That allowed those that weren't interested or got tired of the heat to return to the cool bus and the rest of us to do what we wanted in the museum. It was quite dark but my new little baby camera handled it extremely well!

After the museum we went to a Buddist temple – again, on our own with a 45 minute return time. Perfect, everyone enjoyed it and I got some great pics. There were many school age children all dressed in white; our guide told us that on Sunday they have a Buddism school in the temple. There was also an elephant off to one side that was very popular both with the tourists and the children. We did have to remove our shoes to enter the temple area and they even had an area with chairs which made it much easier for us (all us ol' folks) to put our shoes back on. Then it was off to the Hindu temple.

We were a little worried when we arrived at the Hindu temple as there was a sign that read Temple Closed, but our guide went in and they opened it for us – so no crowd of people here. Again we had free time for pictures or just looking around and then back to the bus. We were lucky all day that there were clouds to keep the temperature down a bit, but the humidity was rather like trying to breathe underwater.

Then after a bit more city tour we went to the 5 Star Hotel Cinnamon for lunch. Marvelous lunch, buffet style with tons of food – all excellent and desserts to die for! We did have a little excitement when two of our passengers decided to have a bit of a disagreement. At first there were just some raised voices, but then our cute little 90 year old man (that uses a walker) started shouting – which started the other man shouting; then the older one started banging on the table. I got there just as the old guy started to dive across the table after the other – I pulled him back into his seat and told the other one to back off. I told them I wouldn't stand for this childish behaviour -that seemed to calm things down and we all went back to our 5-star lunch. The tables were set with crystal and nice plates, etc. - - I had visions of their whole table settings getting shattered and having to pay for it...

Then it was back to the ship and we sailed away about 30 minutes later... I was hot, tired and sore so I spent the rest of the day on the nice cool bed reading.