Sept 1 2024 – Earl’s Regent, Negombo
After nearly four years we had one day of doing absolutely nothing !! And it was so nice to just loll around without a care about whether some report had to be sent or what was for dinner or whether we could put the clothes out to dry etc etc. Sometimes you need to take a day off in its truest sense – just do nothing. Yes, it also includes not being on social media and worrying about how many likes some post has :):).
We woke up late and went for the buffet breakfast at Earl’s Regent. Vasanthi met us right at the door and explained about all the vegetarian dishes. She had been informed by Destination Sri Lanka (our tour organiser) about our food preferences.
My eyes lit up as I saw my favourite string hoppers !!!! Total bliss. There was a special Sri Lankan chutney called Lunamiris and then the coconut sambol which is basically dry chutney. Another Sri Lankan speciality was Milk Rice cake. We saw pineapples in the fruit selection and loaded up our plate with that.
Then I just got myself a few pieces of string hoppers or idiappam as we call them …. and I couldn’t stop smiling. The coconut sambol was great as was the lunamiris. Krishnan got himself some vegetable rice and dal, his favourite combination. As I went around for another round I noticed sago porridge. I asked Vasanthi whether it was sweet or salty, she said it was coconut milk and jaggery with sago. Well, we had found another common favourite – the sabudana payasam. Krishnan and I both got a bowl each.
Walk towards Sea Street
In the afternoon, we got out for a long walk towards Sea Street. That’s the road through which we reached the hotel on Aug 31st. We first came across the beautiful St. Sebastian church and took a couple of pictures. Negombo seems to have a lot of churches and many people follow Christianity as their religion here. Note :- Nearly 70% of Sri Lanka is Buddhist.
A little after the church we came upon two Hindu temples, Sri Singamma Kali Amman Kovil and Sri Sitthi Vinayagar Kovil. Both were closed at this time. The timings for these temples are 5.30 am to 12.30 pm and then from 4.30 pm to 8.30 pm.
Dinner at Planta
As we walked back we stopped at this restaurant named “Planta” that’s very near the Earl’s Regent Hotel. It’s a vegetarian restaurant and also doubles up as a guest house with a few rooms that you can rent. Krishnan and I both had some pineapple juice to start our dinner. Sri Lanka has amazing pineapple, they are juicy, sweet and really tasty. Reminds us of the Pineapples from Manipur.
For dinner we each had a different dish – I chose noodles and Krishnan had Chickpea rice. Both tasted great and best of all, we paid for the food in INR. Yayy, it feels good to be able to use your home currency in a foreign country. 🙂
We got back to the room and clicked a few more pictures of the Indian Ocean from our room … it’s surreal.
We had an interesting incident in the room. The door to the bathroom got jammed and wouldn’t open. We informed the reception and the housekeeping person walked in to try and open the door to the bathroom. At first he tried lifting the door slightly thinking it was stuck. Then he went out and came back with a long hook… it looked like something that he had designed himself. In a minute he unlocked the door from the inside using this long hook of his. “Jugaad” at its best 😁.
Listening to the soothing sound of the waves crashing into the beach … lovely day of doing nothing.