Westysclan World Cruise 2023

The morning after we left Singapore, Mark noticed that the ship was travelling more slowly than its usual 18 knots – his experience told him we were going about 12 knots. Sure enough, at 11 a.m., the captain announced that they were having trouble with a diesel generator and that while this did not affect our safety it did affect our speed. As a result we were informed that we would not be arriving at Colombo in the morning as scheduled. Our new arrival time was estimated as 1:30pm. We had booked a 4hr shore excursion – Colombo City highlights. This was rescheduled from the morning to the afternoon.

They had us all organised into our tour groups at 1pm so that we could be off the ship as soon as it docked. The locals had the red carpet rolled out and the ship was greeted by dancers and market stalls. Our tour guide, who had obviously been out of work since 2020 because of covid, started his welcome with “We are so happy to see your white faces!” We are only the second cruise ship to come to Sri Lanka since 2020. Thus began our rather whirlwind visit of Colombo as they were rather keen to get us to the listed sites before they closed I think.

First up it was a drive through the Pettah Market area. Although they are very extensive the streets are well signed and there is an order to what is sold in each street.

Next we zipped past the Red Mosque, one of the city clock towers and the heavily guarded President’s residence.

Then it was a quick blocky of Victoria Park to see the Town Hall and Lotus Bowl on our way to our first stop – the National Museum.

After our allotted 30 minutes at the museum it was back on the bus and on to the Asokaramaya Buddist temple. Unlike the Red Mosque and the temples like in the picture below, it was a very plain white building on the outside but extremely ornate on the inside.

After this 30 minute stop, it was back on the bus and off to our next programmed stop. This time to Laksala, the state owned craft and souvenir shop. We were given 45min at this stop. Not being souvenir shoppers Mark and I spent about 20 mins inside before going outside to do something that I enjoy more – taking in the sights and sounds of the locals.

As it was now after school time it was really interesting to see the number of children involved in sports – mostly cricket and basketball, even though volleyball is the national sport.

Shopping time finished it was back on the bus and, even though the sun was starting to drop and it was now almost dinner time, it was off to the originally rescheduled High Tea at the Kingsbury via a drive along Galle Face.

High Tea finished, it was back on the bus for our return drive to the ship.

I have to say that our bus driver was very talented, he was able to manoeuvre our coach into and reverse out of the tightest spaces. We were also treated a bit like stars – as soon as our bus was ready to go the Tourist Police stopped the traffic so that we had right of way!