The Delights of Economic Tourism. Part 1.

We have been in Colombo, capital of Sri Lanka for three days now, and are moving on to Kandy tomorrow afternoon. So far, I must say, so very, very good. I’m not sure that Colombo itself has a great deal to recommend it. Indeed, we received a text message from a colleague who had arrived in the city a day ahead of us telling us it was, in her words ‘shite’. I don’t think I’d go that far. It feels like a third world city: very poor and clearly battered by 37 years of war. There is a huge army presence still, with every bridge, every building of note and most major junctions having heavily armed checkpoints – a minimum of six Kalashnikov-toting soldiers at each, and often a tripod mounted heavy machine gun or, in a few cases, a rocket launcher. It has a different feel from other cities with a heavy armed presence, Cairo for instance, in that the Sri Lankan soldiers don’t seem to view their guns as macho accoutrements, more uncomfortable but necessary tools. The armed soldiers are a lot more cheerful for a start – more than happy to wave and smile and call out greetings. This was a bit unnerving at first. But we got used to it.

Given that Colombo has little to recommend it, why then so far so very, very good? That is because of the hotel. I would go as far as to venture that Colombo would probably be worth giving a miss entirely were we not staying at the Galle Face Hotel. As it is, we will indubitably be back. The Galle Face Hotel is the oldest hotel in Asia. The oldest hotel, in fact, east of Suez. It was founded in 1864, 46 years before Singapore’s Raffles, 64 years before Hong Kong’s Peninsula and 23 years before Conrad Hilton was even born.

The Galle Face Hotel seen from it's swimming pool.

These days it is split into two sections – the Galle Face in the northern wing and the Regency (not sure why you would choose to call a Victorian Hotel the Regency, but there you go) in the southern wing. The Galle Face is the original part, slightly tired by all accounts, but charming. The Regency, where we are, has been renovated in line with what modern customers would expect from a hotel of this standing. The building is all one, though. And the building, along with the location, is what makes to hotel what it is. Our hotel bedroom looks out over the courtyard which faces straight out westwards across the Indian Ocean.

The view from our hotel window.

This evening, we took high tea on the verandah and watched the sun set behind the palm trees.

Rachel and I taking tea on the verandah. Note the colonial moustache.

The view from the verandah.

The verandah.

 On our first night we ate at the Sea Spray – the hotel’s fish restaurant, our table right beside the balustrade, three feet from the breaking waves. The hotel is impossibly, unutterably, astoundingly wonderful. I am currently reading a memoir by the journalist Paul Harris who stayed at the hotel for a year in the mid 90s. I am very jealous.

The rest of Colombo is…well to be honest, we have rarely left the hotel. We went up to the station to book our train to Kandy (£1.80 each for the best seats in the first class observation carriage – I’ll let you know what it’s like anon). We also made a sortie out towards the National Museum this morning, but Rachel came down with food poisoning (not the fish restaurant! We suspect the water) so we returned. I went out alone to the mother of all factory surplus shops, intending just to have a look round. I came back with 4 suits (Dunhill, Armani, Boss and Valentino) and 7 shirts (Paul Smith, Ermenegildo Zegna and others) which I assumed were knock offs. But, apparently, the shop is world famous and 99% of its stock is real factory surplus/seconds.

My new suits.

The one thing that has kept me constantly amused is the scam artists, of which there are many. Try to walk anywhere from the hotel and within twenty yards a local will fall into step and engage you in conversation which will eventually work round to his recommendations of where to go. Most often this can be deflected with a smile and a firm ‘no thanks’ but the persistent ones are often worth listening to for their invention. The heart of all the scams is that they will try and charge you to go to a special, one-day only elephant festival at a nearby temple. The thing is that there is an elephant there every day and it is free. One particularly persistent chap earned full marks for inventiveness with his replies:

Him: it is a special one day festival!

Me: I’ve been.

Him: No! This is a Hindu festival. The one you went to was a Buddhist festival.

Me: I’m short of time (I had reached the cash point that I was heading for, 100 yards from the hotel)

Him: Don’t go to that cash point. I will show you a better one.

Me: Better how?

Him: That one gives you Indian money. No good, you can’t spend it. I will show you a Sri Lankan cashpoint.

Needless to say, the money was fine. Another favourite is them telling you that you can’t go a certain way because of security checkpoints. All lies! The only one that worked was a Bajaj driver (three wheeled moped taxis, like TucTucs in Thailand) who told me I should visit a shop on the way to where I wanted to go. I asked him why and he told me that if I did the shop owner would give him a litre of petrol and he was very poor. More examples of honest Sri Lankan advertising:

In case you can't read the strap line, it says "because it is really good"

And some not so honest naming of a hotel:

I think that 'bus stop' might have been more succinct:

The thing that I suspect will most evoke our visit to Colombo will be the sound of crows. Previously their raucous cawing reminded me of the beginning of Worzel Gummidge, but it seems that the whole of the city of Colombo is given over to them. The hotel employs a man to stand on the terrace with a canvas strap to make cracking noises to scre them off. It is also the first time I have ever seen urban scarecrows:

The final footnote to all this is the cost. Rachel and I are very much economic tourists and the strength of the Western and Dubaian economy (don’t believe everything in the news!) means we can afford holidays like this, and feel OK about spreading some of our relative wealth around poorer countries. The hotel is £50 a night. The fish restaurant (one of the most expensive in the city) was £9 each. High tea on the verandah, £4. My designer suits cost £40 each and the shirts were £5 apiece.

Cheers!