Day 11 – the halfway point of my Sri Lanka experience! Since Wednesday was a holiday, Nina and I took a day-trip (via train!) to Galle, and specifically Galle Fort – a UNESCO World Heritage Site located on the South-West Coast of Sri Lanka.
One of the things you are supposed to “do” in Sri Lanka is take a train trip. It is meant to be an experience in itself – with stunning coastal, hill and village views. It did not disappoint. The thing about the Colombo Fort to Galle route (the one we needed to take) is that you can’t actually reserve tickets in advance. You have to just show up at the station and hope for the best! You also can’t book a seat – seats can only be reserved/assigned on first-class train cars and those don’t go to Galle.
So Nina and I headed to the station first thing in the morning and hoped for the best! While we didn’t manage to snag a seat for the majority of the journey there (it was a mad dash for seats as soon as the train pulled up – before it even stopped moving – and we were’t ready for that) – we were fortunate to find standing space right beside the “doors” (or lack of) which provided us with amazing views of the coast and coastal villages. As a side, the journey back home as much less hectic and we did get great seats for that!
Galle itself is a beautiful, complex, layered town with a rich Portuguese, then Dutch, then British, and now independent history. The result gives the feeling of being in a different part of the world at every turn. The train station and “new town” is thoroughly Sri Lankan, but the fort and “old town” (inside the walls) are at times reminiscent of the Portuguese Coast, a small Dutch village or a shopping alley in small town England and of course a typical Sri Lankan city. The effect is memorizing.
We had a terrific day walking along the Fort walls (first built by the Portuguese, then reinforced by the Dutch and later utilized by the British), taking in spectacular views of the Indian Ocean, followed by lunch on the patio of a cobblestone street and some shopping at quintessential stores offering goods handmade in Sri Lankan villages.
It’s difficult to choose highlights of my time here, but this was definitely a wonderful experience and lovely way to mark the halfway point of my time here.
Amy's Leave for Change Experience - Sri Lanka 2020 