It’s time to leave SL. I just ran out of Starbucks decaf!! I had brought some coffee back with us when we went to the US in September and have been making coffee in our room each morning since we have been at the hotel. The tea and coffee here are awful. I figured we have made enough concessions in the 14 months we have been here and giving up decent coffee was too much to ask of us. I have found one good brand of Sl coffee but decaf is unheard of here unless you drink Nescafe Instant. YUCK!

We had a fabulous restful weekend in Galle. I came down with a bad cold on Friday night while we were having a celebration dinner with Veena and her family. We had a royal feast at a vegetarian Indian restaurant. I ate with my hands for the first time here. The meal was served with various Indian breads and not with rice so my task was manageable. Eating with my hands is a real trick due to my arthritis. The last joint in each finger is almost ‘frozen’ with very little if any flexibility so I have declined eating without utensils until Friday.

We left at 9:30 Saturday and stopped at a turtle hatchery along the way. The hatchery has been rebuilt since the tsunami and appeared to be privately owned and operated. Our host said he has returned 250,000,000 turtles to the sea. It was a small operation but the tour was fascinating. Once we got to Galle we had lunch in the old Dutch fort, overlooking the ocean. We then checked into our boutique hotel (6-7 rooms) and were given the newest suite, a beautiful bedroom, a bathroom that would sleep four and a small sitting room. The hotel was originally a Scottish planter’s home in the early 1900’s. I promptly went to bed as I was worn out from sneezing, coughing and blowing my nose. Not so romantic. We lazed around until dinner and ate at the hotel. We had eaten here on our last trip and were eager to enjoy another meal prepared by their chef. It was delicious. We sat outside (just us two were there) under a porch that overlooked the pool and garden. Our glass top wrought iron table had candlelight and was strewn with white flowers. Music played in the background.

On Sunday it was drizzling which is a good thing. It means it was cool for walking around the old fort. There were about 200 homes within the fort walls. Today people are buying them up, rehabbing them either for boutique shops or private homes. So we strolled along poking around various shops and antique stores. I had two chains made for pendants I had bought here and Ron found a lock for the antique trunk we had bought for the Thailand house.

Then we went on a wild goose chase for an eating establishment mentioned in our tour book. We asked for directions numerous times but never found the place. We gave up and just stopped at the first place we saw. It had mediocre food but it was three feet from the ocean. I am sure it got wiped out in the tsunami.

We came back to the hotel and I napped, then we read and in the evening we went over to the living room where we listened to music, perused books and magazines and enjoyed a ‘cocktail’-sweetened lime juice. Dinner tonight was their signature dish: rice and curry. We had decided to eat in again as the food, including breakfast, is so good here. It was the best rice and curry we have had in SL. Lots of coconut cream and milk. It was soooo good. Then there was dessert: mine was coconut flan with passion fruit sauce. Oh my…divine. Ron had five-spice panacotta with plum sauce. Yum!

We were invited to see their other property across the street. The Dutch House is also a boutique hotel built in 1912. The décor here was very different but quite lovely. We loved the artwork and recognized an artist whose work we had bought for the Thai house. The rooms were huge and even more expensive than ours across the way. But it was fun to see how the rich and famous live! If you want to see photos you can google both places: The Sun House and the Dutch House, Galle. Ron will post our photos when he has a moment. Given that we leave in eight days, he doesn’t have a lot of free time. He is wrapping up things at work, he has consultants from Vancouver here and colleagues arriving from DC this week and next. In between we have lots going on socially: dinners with friends to say goodbye, a tea hosted by a consulting firm Ron works with, a farewell party, etc. It is great to have so much happening as it make the time fly by.

We left Galle after breakfast and Ruan, our driver, invited us to his home. He said he had never taken tourist to his hoe before. We were honored as it is rare to be invited into someone’s home here. This was the third time I had been in a SL home: Veena’s, her brother’s and now Ruan’s home. Ruan’s mother and sister-in-law had prepared a feat for us. We were overwhelmed. It was a day for eating. We had dinner at Veena’s and she had prepared an Indian feast for us. God, we will put on all the weight we have taken off if we aren’t careful. Anyway, it was a delightful day with excellent home cooked food. We are truly blessed in our experience here.

As you probably know from the news, a LTTE suicide bomber tried to kill the president’s brother on Friday. He killed two security personnel and injured 14 others. Now the government is really clamping down. Streets were blocked yesterday when I was out and a significant number of roads had become one way, creating havoc for drivers not to mention screwing up bus routes since this was not a planned activity. Each side is accusing the other of failing to honor the cease-fire agreement. What a joke. Neither side has honored the agreement since we have been here. Thousands of people have been killed and even more injured with the senseless fighting. They have learned nothing in 20 years of civil war.

The roads are in bad physical condition. Because the infrastructure cannot handle the amount of rain, there is often standing water or water bubbling up out of the storm drains. I am seeing more and more erosion. Yesterday a part of the road about 12 to 18 inches square had caved in about a foot deep. Someone had struck a small tree branch into the hole as a warning but the branch had been run over so you wouldn’t see this hole until your tire got wedged into it. Oy! There isn’t enough money for proper infrastructure here but the war continues at great expense to the country not to mention the cost to individuals.

Mr. Kularathna, the trishaw driver I use, can no longer park on the street outside the hotel. So the group of twenty drivers has had to hire a man to stand outside the hotel and when someone needs a vehicle, he signals the drivers who are parked off the road across the street. In addition, tourism is way down due to the escalation of violence and this means everyone earns less money. We went to a very nice new restaurant last night and were the only people there. Another couple came in as we were leaving. In Galle, one of the staff at our hotel told us they usually have their rooms full this time of year but not this year. We were the only guests at the Sun House and no one was at the Dutch House. The facility had at least 7 staff members some of whom are dependent on tips or service charges for their livelihood. It breaks my heart. It also pisses me off that the politicians and government huff and puff but do nothing of consequence to improve the lives of the Tamils. If the Tamils were treated equally under the law, the LTTE would have no cause and no support. What can you say about High Military and defense officials who own companies that operate as arms brokers. They make lots of money on every arms purchase. What incentive do they have for ending the war?

And that’s all there is from paradise just five degrees above the equator!