*To see photos related to the post, head here.*
Arriving in Negombo – a bustling, scorching hot beach town about 20mins from Colombo’s airport with a tourist strip reminiscent of a lower-key corner of Tenerife – at 9am after somewhere in the neighbourhood of 36hrs of travel, all I wanted to do was check in and nap. My brain, however, wanted to whizz through everything I saw on the way to our guesthouse. I settled for a little kindergarten-style quiet time before we headed out to get our first taste of the area.
It turns out we booked a spot that was a fair way from the main part of Negombo, so our hot & sweaty selves did a bit of exploring of our immediate surrounds instead. We found the bank, the shop (water!), got our first taste of kotthu and chilli chicken, and quickly learned that the tourists who visit Sri Lanka don’t tend to like spicy food. We asked for chilli paste, which was a surprise to the wait staff; they watched us warily from the corner as we happily added enough heat to match the outdoor temps. Kotthu is the local equivalent of fried rice, using chopped roti instead of rice. When made well, it’s pretty tasty and portions are extremely hearty; we’ve since had it several times and have experienced the full spectrum of kotthu-making skills, but our first one was a good one.
After lunch, we stepped back outside to get slapped in the face by the humidity and slowly made our way home, leading me to create a rule that I now call “tuk tuks after 10.” It’s WAY too hot to plan to walk anywhere in midday heat while trying to acclimate from our winter to their…. whatever the Hades this is.
Curiosity and appetites properly sated and clothing thoroughly drenched, a shower and a nap were definitely on the cards. Key jet lag detail: don’t put Rich in charge of the alarm. Our one hour nap turned into three and we woke up slightly disoriented courtesy of a darkening sky. A quick freshen up and we were on our way to feast on the lagoon crab that Negombo is deservedly famous for – it lived up to its reputation. The restaurant staff delighted in seeing the total mess we made of everything in a three foot radius as we cracked our way through shells and sopped up all of the chilli sauce we could manage. While in town, we also sorted out local SIM cards that once again reminded us that Canadian cellular plans are a complete scam: 15GB of data for a month cost us $8 each.
After a decent night’s sleep, we decided to walk (early!) about 5kms to Negombo’s main tourist strip for breakfast. Along the way, as my hair began to frizz in a way that was reminiscent of Monica in the Bahamas, we passed a shop that was heaving with people; motorcycles were screeching to a halt out front, there was a pile of noise in an otherwise-quiet street, and the staff seemed to be cooking up a storm for the large queue of people filling the shop. If there’s one thing we’ve learned in 20 years of travel, it’s that you always stop at places that are busy with locals. And so we came to get our first taste of ulundu vade, a savoury gram flour doughnut with curry leaves, minced onion, and chillies worked into the batter and sold with a spiced dipping sauce. We munched as went and, fortunately for Rich, polished off our doughnuts before our explorations took us to Negombo’s especially lively fish market. They not only sell but also process their goods on-site and I was especially thankful that I get to enjoy being curious while not enjoying the smells. We’ve been to some soggy fish markets before, but this one was enough to even make me want to walk on my tip toes through the accumulating slurry. My one lingering regret from Negombo is that I didn’t set about photographing the market the way my instincts said I should, but my tentative shots still make me smile.
Afterwards, Rich’s music tastes and our penchant for not ignoring a busy food spot meant that we decided to see what the score was with Gojira Restaurant for lunch and were pleasantly surprised by an awesome curry-and-rice lunch that came with a tutorial about how to eat it. It’s rice in the middle, curries around the outside; mix everything together and then enjoy each bite with a bit of poppadum, roasted chillies and small dried fish – minus the head – in case you’re wondering. If you’re Sri Lankan, it also means eating the whole mess with your bare (right) hand, but they were gracious enough to give us cutlery. It’s a quintessential Sri Lankan meal and also happens to be delicious, so we counted it as a major win. We spent the rest of the afternoon taking it easy, headed back into town for dinner, and then called it a day.
Day 3 started with a run that one of us enjoyed, one of us endured, and that left many locals wondering what on earth the two Westerners were doing at 7:30am. It’s clearly not normal for tourists to be out doing such a nonsensical activity at that time of day – or maybe at all.
We treated Negombo as a chance to start diving face-first (not quite literally, but almost) into Sri Lankan food, so our curry buffet lunch at Ceylon Kitchen was another notch in the win column – so much so that we decided to go back at dinner to try their hoppers, another signature Sri Lankan dish that is the equivalent to a rice flour crepe fried in a small, deep, round-sided pan. They were served with coconut sambol and a chilli-onion jam concoction that definitely got me excited about what other food Sri Lanka has to offer.
Our time in Negombo included a boat tour in the lagoon that taught us a key lesson: when booking anything touristy, ask specific questions (like where you’re going or what’s included). Our “2.5-3hr” tour actually lasted an hour… The boats all look like they might share the same birth year as my Mom, but I can tell you confidently that Mom is ageing far more gracefully. Aesthetics aside, it was interesting to putter along to the local Monkey Island, which is inhabited by some exceptionally greedy toque macaques that look like they need a lesson in “less is more” eyeliner application, before cruising along the shoreline to see the fishermen’s homes and boats that ranged from larger fishing vessels to skiffs that reminded me of the dhows we saw in Kenya to the simplest outrigger canoes. Just as we cruised past remnants of wreckage from the 2004 tsunami that decimated the country – the lingering cleanup serving as a reminder that this is truly an underdeveloped country – the grandeur of St Mary’s Church came into view, the sun literally highlighting the juxtaposition of how money has historically spent locally. On that note, we’re learning that Sri Lankans are currently feeling optimistic about their recent change of government, which has heralded an era of looking after its people.
Jetlag and our rather relentless pre-departure schedule made me feel like I’d gone a few rounds in an MMA ring when we landed in Sri Lanka, so I was in a bit of a daze when it was time to head off to our next stop. We took our chances on getting a train, failed, and instead boarded a local bus for the 6-hr journey to Anuradhapura, hoping it meant bidding a not-so-fond farewell to Negombo’s soul-sucking heat.
Grateful for: an adventurous palate; air conditioning
Up next: Anuradhapura