Sri Lanka Rally 2020 | Day 2 – Colombo to Galle | Bespoke Rallies
The cars were of flagged off at 9 am, from the Galle Face Hotel. The traffic was relatively light for the city centre as it was a Sunday morning and we were soon leaving Colombo behind us heading towards Galle.
Our first stop was the Pokunuvita Temple, with a reclining Buddha. We were met here by Arun who guided us around the site. We were each given a flower to present to the Buddha. A school was on the same site as the temple, the children in their white school uniforms were intrigued by our arrival and some of them took the opportunity to practice their English on us.
The road beyond the temple was closed so Arun led us on an alternative route to his family farm. Here we had demonstrations of rubber collection and processing into flat sheets, extracting coconut oil, cinnamon and we were given a tour of his plantation where they have over 70 varieties of bananas, star fruit, pineapples, giant passion fruit and a lot more. After that they gave us an excellent lunch prepared with all the local produce.
We then continued south along the coast, stopping briefly at a gem mine. We finally reached our destination for the next couple of days, the Galle Fort Hotel, before the heavens opened and we experienced a tropical rainstorm. Luckily whilst our dinner was served on the veranda we were sheltered from the rain. We are all hoping for a brighter morning ready for our walking tour of Galle Fort area by our local guide Roy.
