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Traveling along Galle road....

Sri Lanka travelogue, part 2: Hikkaduwa and Galle

Ben van den Anker
2006-05-02 01:33:39

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about the Mrs. Khalid's Guest House, supposed to be one of the best, so I take the room. It's one of the nicest guest houses I've been in in Sri Lanka, there's really a family atmosphere. A lot of wood in the living room, used in chairs, the floor, practically almost everything. The owner tells me that business is low this year. "Now I can only rent three rooms, my daughters are older now and they have a room for them selves. There’s more competition too, when we started there were only four hotels in Galle, now so many! "His daughters really were older now, the oldest one looked me in the eye before she turned her voile over her head. I wonder, they must know that there's a lot more going on outside their Muslim world, will they never get curious for the life that tourists live? Where woman can walk in shorts on the streets? How will they judge the Muslim religion? So many questions I wanted to ask but couldn't.

When I returned at night from a theatre life broadcasting Mrs. Khalid tells me it was a bit dangerous what I've done. She always tells her children to avoid crowds, that's were the terrorists will attack. I almost forget about terrorists here. When walking the streets and bastions of Galle one can only think of joy. I watch the sun go down, boys are diving from a bastion right between some rocks in the water, it looks dangerous. One boy asks for a sip of water, I lend him my bottle and he tells about studying in Sri Lanka, his goal is to belong to the best in computer science, there's a whole new market for it in Sri Lanka.

I take a walk into the new town, it's not on the Lonely Planet map, but I'm an independent traveler, "I can find out myself where to go to", I say to myself. The hilltop view isn't much interesting, there's a big church on top of it, and everything is closed so except from sweating a lot it didn't bring me anything. In the evening I walk the bastions again, I can't get enough from these walks, watching the sun go down into the sea, feeling the wind in my hair.......

now I have to make the decision to go again, I think about Ratnapura, the city of gems in the mountains.. Tomorrow I'll look for the bus. I feel a kind of strange... life is good here!

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