GETTING AROUND Galle
I’M USUALLY PRETTY FLY WHEN IT
comes to travel planning but on a spur-of-the-moment trip to Sri Lanka, there was barely time to cue up Trip Advisor before I found myself crawling through the traffic-choked streets of Colombo in a taxi, knowing not much more than I was heading for Galle Fort, a UNESCO World Heritage Site a couple of hours south of the capital.
Galle (rhymes with fall) Fort is a walled town established by Portuguese merchant-explorers in 1558 and later overtaken and expanded by the Dutch. In addition to the fortress, Galle also boasts beautiful beaches and a pristine forest hinterland that, for now at least, is one of eco-tourism’s best kept secrets.
Galle Fort is a charming, slightly dilapidated 130-acre enclave encircled by sturdy rock walls and surrounded by sea on three sides. Within the battlements, narrow cobblestone streets are lined with elegant buildings, some recently renovated, others in atmospheric disrepair. Tourists, and those who make a living from them, are the principle occupants of the fort, while life in modern Galle mostly takes place outside the bastion walls.
It’s frustrating to arrive in a foreign town with no idea what to eat. While others are tucking into tasty-looking snacks at street-food stands swirled in tantalising aromas, I hang back, wondering what — or how — to order. In Galle with no tip sheet in hand, I called on Exotic Voyages, a travel company that specialises in customising itineraries for travellers with special interests. Could they point me in the direction of some good food? At very short notice? “Sure” they said, “no problem.”
I checked into Galle Fort Hotel, a meticulously restored mansion that once served as the headquarters of the town’s Dutch colonial administration. It retains the feel of a grand private house, with lofty wood-beamed ceilings, highly polished furniture, exuberant tropical flower displays and a fine collection of antiques. Despite its elegant trappings, the hotel is relaxed and welcoming, and ideally located in the heart of the walled town.
Next day at cock’s crow, a beaming Galle native named Vicky picked me up at the hotel. A former cook and barman turned professional tour guide, Vicky was the perfect person to show me what local people eat, starting with breakfast.
Leaving the fort through the Portuguese Gate, an archway in the massive perimeter wall, we threaded our way through the jumble of streets surrounding the central train station to Perera & Sons (established in 1902), a bustling bakery-café where a brisk morning trade was going on. Customers streamed in and out, choosing sandwiches, breads and pastries from the display in a glass-fronted counter. The Portuguese introduced Catholicism to Sri Lanka, along with the bread and wine needed for Communion. Local scribes recorded that the foreigners ate white stones and drank blood. Over the years Catholicism caught on with many of the native Sinhalese, bread, it seems, with all.
I secured a table while Vicky ordered. String hoppers, squiggly piles of steamed rice noodles, served with fresh coconut relish, spicy dal and a richly flavoured fish curry, are a Sri Lankan breakfast staple. The word hopper is thought to be a British adaptation of the South Indian appam, a term used to describe various kinds of steamed and griddled cakes. Egg hoppers, also popular for breakfast, are entirely different, cup-shaped rice crêpes cooked in a mini-wok, with a runny egg in the centre.
Another morning food is yogurt, made fresh daily from the milk of water buffaloes. These docile creatures can be glimpsed around Galle grazing in rice paddies and dappled glades fringed by coconut palms. At the Municipal Fruit Market, a snaggle-toothed vendor eagerly extolled the health benefits of buffalo curd. Removing the paper covering from one of the terracotta pots in which the yogurt is made and sold, he uncorked a glass bottle and added a dark golden stream of palm treacle. The tang of tart, creamy yogurt paired with the toffee-and-smoke flavour of palm flower sap cooked down over charcoal jolted my inside voice awake. “I want to live here!” it commanded.
Or maybe in Unawatuna, one of several beaches within striking distance of Galle that offer golden sand, cheap lodging and genuinely friendly locals. The narrow, flower-garlanded lane that snakes through Unawatuna village is lined with homestays, yoga retreats, handicraft shops and cafés offering smoothies and organic eats for the backpackers who flock here, attracted by the laidback lifestyle.
I walked along the beach, sinking my toes into the thick sand. Most of the palm-thatched restaurants were shuttered at this early hour but a sarong-clad gent sweeping up fallen leaves waved me to a table at the
Banana Leaf Bar. With yogurt still in mind, I ordered a salted lassi, sipped as I watched the breakers roll in and the morning unfold, a dog the same colour as the sand trotting along the water’s edge.
Later, we went to meet Karuna, a pint-sized dynamo who teaches cooking classes above Sonja’s Healthfood Restaurant in Unawatuna. Bundling me into a tuk tuk, she grasped my knee and squealed as the three-wheeled jalopy roared off to market with a farting sound and a burst of diesel exhaust.
At the Green Market, a low, colonnaded hall dating from the Dutch period, we picked out green beans, pumpkin, aubergine, drumstick vegetable and a bag of small mangoes, each to be made into curry. Sri Lanka is blessed with remarkable biodiversity and ideal growing climate. Vegetable curries, fish and fresh fruit are the mainstays of a naturally healthy diet. Across from the market, at B&K Stores No. 1 Tea & Spices Suppliers, we bought blended curry powders, fragrant cinnamon, and for my suitcase, Ceylon tea, palm syrup and a precious vial of sandalwood oil.
Next we careened off to a makeshift stand on the waterfront where two large fish with shining eyes lay on a rough wooden counter. Karuna pointed to the one she wanted. The vendor skinned and chopped it into chunks with a few practised swipes of his machete, scooped the fish into a plastic bag and sluiced down his counter with water. “I always buy from him, because he is clean and his fish is always fresh,” Karuna explained. A fat monitor lizard stomped through the scrubby grass to fetch the scraps.
Further along the road we purchased a newly plucked chicken. The wooden crate she came in was propped up on the sidewalk, straw bedding still fresh.
In Karuna’s outdoor kitchen we got to work. One recipe for chicken and fish, another for vegetables and fruit. Each began with garlic pounded in a mortar and red onions chopped by hand. Then fresh curry leaves and pandan leaf, black pepper, salt, turmeric, garam masala, mustard seed and curry powders, added in specific order. Beans were topped and tailed, pumpkin washed and cubed, drumsticks and mangoes peeled. We grated coconut flesh on a razor-toothed whirly gig and kneaded it with water to produce
…Vegetable curries, fish and fresh fruit are the mainstays of a naturally healthy diet…
coconut cream and milk. Each curry got a dose of both. Lastly we made a coconut-laced dal and a pot of nutty, unpolished rice.
After class, Vicky drove me back to the Galle Fort Hotel and joined me for a cup of tea on the hotel’s pillared verandah with its tall louvered shutters providing shelter from the street, and ceiling fans turning lazily overhead. Ceylon tea is world famous, thanks to British merchants like Thomases Lipton and Twining, but nowhere does it taste as good as on home turf. Perhaps it’s the water, or centuries of brewing expertise, but after that perfect pot of broken orange pekoe, there’ll be no more teabags for me.
Walking the walls of Galle Fort at sunset is a local ritual. Romantic couples, families, tourists with selfie sticks and barefoot kids in raggedy shorts all take to the ramparts to watch the epic Indian Ocean sunset. Bidding farewell to Vicky, I joined the flow heading to the walls. I found a rocky perch facing west and watched the sun descend in a blaze of vermillion and dissolve, majestically, into the sea.
Wandering home through the fort’s darkening alleyways, I spied a pair of blue topaz earrings glittering in a shop window. Gems and spices have lured traders to Sri Lanka since historic times and the island that hangs like a teardrop emerald from the southern tip of India remains a great place to shop for precious stones. The prices are very reasonable and clever craftsmen can fashion almost any jewellery design you have in mind.
One splurge begat another. I chose The Fort Printers restaurant on a whim — drawn in by its warm lighting, moody jazz, ancient walls and antique printing press. Seated in a courtyard beneath frangipani trees necklaced in fairy lights, I ordered a glass of wine and savoured the balmy, perfumed air. The wine was bone dry and minerally, a perfect match for the artfully plated, locally inspired tapas that followed. I couldn’t fault the meal, or on reflection, a moment of my day.
Not bad for a girl who didn’t do her homework.