Many visitors to Sri Lanka will start their trip at Negombo. It is only 20 minutes’ drive from the international airport, while Colombo is 40 minutes away. We would be taking a 12 day clockwise tour from Negombo to Colombo. For comparison, the island has an area of 65,610 km²; the area of Tasmania is 68,401 km². This map is from the SriLankan Airlines inflight magazine.
The town is a typical busy Asian city, with its share of interesting museums, temples and churches. A canal system built by the Dutch enables you to quickly get out into the country.
The dominating feature is the sea with a huge fleet of fishing boats, some of which stay out for up to a month.
There is a wholesale and a retail fish market, both of which fascinate the visitor. Particularly interesting is the extensive area near the retail market where unsold fish of the day before are gutted, filleted and then laid out to dry.
We only mention establishments such as hotels and restaurants that we have found to be outstanding. The Heritance Hotel at Negombo is one such property. It was perfectly adequate and comfortable. However, the remarkable feature was the food, all produced from an open kitchen.
Arriving the night before meant that our first meal would be breakfast. Most of us gravitated to the hoppers station, for a pancake “hat” containing an egg and onto which we spooned some prawn or other curry and topped with some cheese, caramelised onion and chilli.
They made a remarkable cake of cinnamon scrolls all bound together and topped with nuts and caramel sauce, served warm. It was labelled “café bone” and we were told it was made using croissant dough. With cinnamon one of the dominant spices of Sri Lanka it seemed particularly apt. Here is a version: Cinnamon Rolls with Caramel.
At lunch and dinner they produced wonderful curries and desserts. It was a hotel dining room that could more than match the best the restaurants in the streets had to offer.
It was an impressive beginning to the food of Sri Lanka.
Continued:
For a continuation of our travels, see: Northern Monuments.