It’s almost been a full week of life here in Sri Lanka. We’ve had a taste of the vibrant chaos of Colombo and now a few days in the calmer ocean-side wor
ld of Galle swimming at the array of beaches, enjoying air-conditioned rooms at Danu’s brother’s guest house, and getting some decent sunburns no matter how much sunscreen is applied.
Galle is the epitomy of a tropical paradise, and our place is not even 50 feet from one of the many ocean inlets. At the moment Kelly and I are sitting in the guest house’s backyard looking out over coconut and palm trees onto the rolling waves of the oce
A tuk-tuk parked in the jungle
an. Across the bay is a long peninsula which ends with the stony, over four hundred year old Galle Fort, built originally by the Portuguese and further developed by the Dutch. To our right there’s a stretch of beach, along which Sri Lankan fishermen are doing the slow and laborous work of paddling their surprisingly narrow boats out from shore with its massive nets and then slowly, by hand with about 15 men, pulling the boat and the nets back in to drag whatever fish have been trapped ashore.
Seafood is, of course, a staple here. Danu’s mom flew in from France at the same time that we arrived to see him and to cook for us, and cook she has! Last night we had amazingly delicious fresh-caught tuna curry, rice, another kind of fish that was deep-fried addictive, and a coconut curry. Whereas “fresh caught” in a Fargo grocery store means something along the lines of “caught and frozen while fresh and then shipped at least a few thousand miles,” here it means that it was caught an hour or two ago and you rode in a tuk-tuk maybe a quarter mile to buy the fish from the fisherman’s stand on the beach.
We’ll enjoy more fresh seafood, fruit, and sunshine in the next several days as we leave Galle and make our way up the west coast to Batticaloa, then inland to the mountainous region of Nuwara Eliya and Kandy before returning to Colombo. I’ll do my best to keep updating on an almost-daily basis so people can follow along with our adventures.
The sunset from our guest house
1 Comment
Tears in my eyes when I read that Danu’s mom had flown in to spend time with Danu, Emily and all of you . . . and cook. Give her a hug for me and tell her I want the recipes (: (prob more technique so I’m counting on you Ben) Thanks for taking time to share – so fun to to come along in that way. Sounds perfectly wonderful.. . aaah! Prep for ski adventures in MT happening here – skiis in various states of repair around the main floor; warm up at Spirit Mtn on Monday with great conditions. We continue to pray the manifest presence and peace/joy of God for all of you.
from Mitchell: sounds delicious