Day 13 of Sri Lanka Trip, to Colombo on July 23, 2017
Towards the end of our tour of Sri Lanka as we planned to take an another train ride back to Colombo. But before that, since we had time, we decided to take another visit to Galle Fort first.
The beach here is much wider, and offered more water activities than Mirissa.
We had this breakfast in a restaurant by Unawatuna Beach. Since the latter half of our journey, there’s little distinction food-wise between our breakfast and other two meals of day.
Just after breakfast, two of my more adventurous friends scouted a surfing club where introductory surfing classes were provided. (Beach-wise Unawatuna was much better than Mirissa.) But for me, bathing in seawater (and occasionally battered by waves) was as much as I'd like to take.
So at about noon, we left the town of Unawatuna and headed for Galle, paid its Fort a final visit.
Galle Fort
During the day with sun shining bright and heat permeating the air, the streets of Galle Fort weren't as populated as in the dusk.
With Coat of Arms and inscription "1668" as year of construction. The gate was widen in the late 19-Century under British rule to allow easy flow of traffic.
Inscribed with "ANNO MDCL XIX" (1669), depiction of Dutch Coat of Arms with the ubiquitous emblem of cock and an inset "VOC" (Verenigde Osstindische Compagnie, Dutch East India Company in English) in the center.
This building was originally constructed in 1683 (see the inscription in the photo) as Dutch Government House.
A British mercantile firm called John Black and Company established themselves in Galle Fort in 1847 and built this building. The building was currently under conversion into a hotel.
This is Sri Lanka's oldest light station dating back to 1848, but the original 24.5-meter-high lighthouse built by the British was located about 100 meters from the current site and destroyed by fire in 1934. The existing 26.5-meter-high lighthouse was erected in 1939.
Japanese Peace Pagoda built in 2005 can be seen in the distance.
After that, we left Galle and headed North along the coastal country road. Although we could take the train directly from Galle to Colombo, the (in)famous unpunctuality of Sri Lanka trains (that we encountered later) and the fact that from Galle all the way up till Aluthgama (which is half the journey), the railway was actually farther from sea than country road.
And in this way our driver could take us to some restaurant for lunch, which he knew for sure provided free driver food.
Our driver pointed it to us specifically, that this pagoda was built for some ceremony. It’s either wedding or funeral, but I didn’t recall exactly.
Catching Train
We had lunch in a restaurant in the town of Hikkaduwa. The restaurant manager told our driver there's a 3:10-ish train at Hikkaduwa to Colombo, which we intended to take, and which we missed by a minute probably because we spent longer than expected checking out the bathrooms after lunch.
Given there's only a handful of trains per day, sounds disastrous? Not actually, as we came to the ingenious solution of asking our driver to take us to the next train station in the city of Ambalangoda.
So there's this exciting van vs train race separated by a narrow field, which, since Sri Lanka's railway infrastructure wasn't so developed, our van quickly pulled ahead as we cheered our driver up.
We stopped at this smaller Telwatta Railway Station for a short while. After learning the express train to Colombo wouldn't stop here, we made our way farther north to Ambalangoda.
This narrow field separated the coastal road that we were riding on from the rail tracks.
It took our driver 20 minutes to get Ambalangoda from Hikkaduwa, the "express" train 60 minutes by schedule, and 80 minutes in reality. Didn't know what happened to the train along the way, but judging by how calm local people were waiting on the platform, I guess this wasn't uncommon in Sri Lanka.
However, to be fair, it should be a universal truth that single-track railway is susceptible to delay.
The table on the right displayed the few trains that stopped at this station.
Train to Colombo
Compared with the previous highland train to Ella, this coastal train to Colombo was much less crowded, with quite a handful of seats available when we boarded. Expectedly, none were better than its doors.
Boats by Ocean
Track and Palm Trees by the Ocean
Nameplate says this carriage was constructed back in 1990, which was older than me. This train wasn’t as crowded as the Ella one, as it’s not too hard to find an available seat, nor was it as tourist-packed. Of course, I stuck with the best seat, the doors.
Kalu River
A passing loop on this predominantly single track railway.
Trail along Railway Track
Railway track cut through the main entrance of Jie Jie Beach by Jetwing Hotel. So, people both on and off the train were taking photos.
Scenes along Railway Track
Could you believe that those buildings on peninsula belonged to Lanka Academy of Technological Studies, which I assume, the only technology was fishing?
Coastal Railway
One of the few multi-platform station on the line.
Coastal Railway
The friendly Sri Lankan people were waving at us.
Villages by Railway Track
Right after Mount Lavinia Railway Station there was a short tunnel. A gentleman informed me that after the tunnel there would be a short segment of track which makes the perfect picture. Yes, for the first time in our journey around Sri Lanka, we saw a proper skyline of Colombo in the distance.
Mount Lavinia Beach
Colombo skyline in the distance.
Sunset over Indian Ocean
Quite ironically, thanks to the delay, we were able to watch this spectacular sunset over the Indian ocean.
Here's a note to camera lovers, this last segment of coastal railway was directly next to ocean, so my camera lens ended up covered in tiny water drops and I do believe their performance was quite significantly impacted. Though after the experience in Moroccan desert, I never bothered to take too much care towards my now-disposable camera.
Coastal Railway near Colombo
It's close enough to downtown, so there were people taking photos at us.
Coastal Railway near Colombo
It took the train more than two hours to cover 84 kilometers of track. But quite to our surprise, we almost arrived at the same time as our driver, who blamed it on the traffic jam near Colombo.
So after that we asked our driver to take us to our Airbnb apartment, thanked him for two weeks of extraordinary service, and ended the day.
Our Airbnb apartment is just next to it.
END