Day 12

I took a tuk tuk to Galle together with Sjaan (a 70+ year old divorced lady that had discovered the joys in life and looked (and also behaved) a little like like you would expect from a ‘Sjaan’). Being in Sri Lankan traffic with a tuk tuk is quite different compared to being in a buss, but I have to say that it was less scary than I thought, even though there were quite a number of red busses here. Red busses are public busses and the white ones are privately owned, meaning that the drivers of the white busses will get fines when they misbehave in traffic, but the drivers of the red busses not so much. The tuk tuk drivers were lined up in front of the hotel and are clearly experience in giving the tourist what they want. You name it and they will get you there and even give a small tour, which may occasionally go past a store of a friend of theirs. This is how I was suckered into buying a bag of herbs (including a recipe on how to use them) and two mangos at the market we visited first. As Sjaan did not speak English very well, they would quickly leave her alone and focus their energy on me.

Hereafter Sjaan and I wandered through the old fort of Galle and told the tuk tuk driver to pick us up 2 hours later. I did manage to find the pants that I wanted and when we were back on the street an older man kindly took my hand and started a conversation about how he had seen us the day before in the hotel. He claimed he was the cook there and saw us at the buffet, but I suspect that the tell-tale dinner-included bands around our wrists kind of gave away our accommodation. Coincidentally, the cook happened to be off that day and he was about to visit his daughter who was sick in the hospital. I offered him the two mangos for his daughter, but what do you know… she doesn’t like mangos. Then he took us to a gift shop that he thought we should really see and since I figured I had to buy something again, I bought a cheap little puzzle of 5 elephants for my nice (I’d never seen a kid so ecstatic about a puzzle before, when I gave it to her two weeks later – but that’s another story). The ‘cook’ then talked me into giving the 500 rupees chance to him for his daughter and told me to not mention this to the people at the hotel. The day after, other people from our group ran into the same guy, he was now referred to as “Elke’s cook” and nobody else let themselves get pushed over into giving him anything. Further on in the fort, quite a number of different groups of kids seemed to be on a school trip and they were all waving at us. After our driver picked us up again we quickly stopped at a turtle rescue center (entrance was free, but donations were welcomed) and then went back to the hotel. We made an appointment with the tuk tuk driver for a tour around the lake the next day.

It had been quite warm walking in the fort, so after lunch and some rest, I decided to go for a walk down the beach. I was told that there would be some pole-fishers a bit to the west, but after 10 minutes it started to poor and by the time I made it to the poles the fishermen were gone. It has to be mentioned that the main source of income for these men was not coming from the fish, as really it is not a very efficient way of fishing, they mainly continued doing this for the tourist that would give money for the privilege to take a picture. The wind was also quite strong, so when it stopped raining, the wind had blown me dry before I made it back to the hotel.