We arranged a tour around Galle today with Mum & Dad with a driver and a guide.

 

First stop was the old town and the fort, lots of historic, colonial buildings and a museum where they demonstrated traditional hand trades and crafts.

 

    

 

 

 

It is slightly worrying when you realise that you used to own many of the things now in the museum.

The man below is grinding gemstones and the next picture shows hand lace making – a very slow process.

We had the usual tour of the gem store at the end and we could have been tempted by the white sapphires – if only we had a few thousand dollars in our pockets !

 

     

 

Next stop, up to the old lighthouse with great views out to sea, we also stopped to take a photo of the school children in their perfect white uniforms.

 

    

 

A little drive outside the town took us past the local fishermen, dragging in their nets from the beach and selling their wares.

 

    

 

We have seen families fishing in these long, narrow boats.

 

The middle section is only around 6inches wide so they have to sit precariously on the edge or remain standing up.

 

Apparently they are shaped like this to make it easy to ride in and out through the surf.

 

A lot of fishing is done from the beach where they spread huge nets in the water and then drag them up the beach at the end of the day.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

We had a nice lunch overlooking the beach before visiting the turtle hatchery where they are trying to restore the turtle population by incubating the eggs and then releasing the baby turtles into the wild.

These two turtles are 2 days old and will soon be set free. The turtle Mark is holding is a very rare breed called a loggerhead and these are kept for a few months until they develop hard shells so that they have a better chance of survival.

 

     

 

This is an adult loggerhead, their colouring is a very unusual honey colour with a very distinctive pattern on their shell.

 

The adult turtles are kept for short periods at the hatchery in order to educate the population so that the turtles are not hunted for their shells or to eat.

 

That is very good to know as turtles love to eat jelly fish and we certainly need to reduce their population !

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Sri Lanka is famous for stilt fishermen and so we stopped to see them, but it seems like this has been continued just as a tourist attraction….

Within minutes they had put a turban on Marks head, a fishing rod in his hand and were helping him up onto one of the stilts !

 

Still, it made for some good photos for the blog !

 

      

 

As we left they asked for money, lots of money, as much as it cost for the bus, driver and guide for the whole day.

We gave them a small amount and just walked away – what a rip off !

 

Finally we had a quick wander around town, there is not much in the way of gifts or arts and crafts, however there are some very colourful fruit and vegetable stalls along with lots of bags of spices and rice. They were keen to give us samples of their fruit and we will certainly return for provisioning before we leave.

 

 

 

The tour finished at the government dentist as I had chipped a filling during the passage. Although I had tried to fill it with my emergency dental pack, it was getting very sharp and uncomfortable.

The dentists here in Sri Lanka are about 20 years behind the times and so I wouldn’t recommend it !

I refused an injection as I was worried about hygiene and the drills were the old fashioned slow ones that vibrate right through you – still it feels much better now – I just hope I haven’t caught anything whilst I was there !