We slept in a bit Friday then headed out. The plan was just to walk around Colombo, but we wanted a good last Sri Lankan meal for breakfast since we wouldn't be eating local food once Passover started. Maria recommended a place but I forgot the directions so we just started toward Colombo 11 (Pettah) since that's where we wanted to go and figured we'd stop along the way.
It was super hot again and not as easy to find a place as we'd thought. We finally found a cute little lake area with pelicans and swan boats and a few places to get food. We decided what we wanted but it turned out since it was another holiday (Poya, the new moon holiday) All they had was Fried rice and rotti so that's what we got. It was a good last meal before passover though.
From there we walked along (trying to use map me) and found the Red Mosque. Then some guy started chatting with us and took us around to see some Hindu Temples and we asked him to bring us to the Pettah market which is where he said he was going anyway. I'm pretty sure we went a crazy route and it was super hot out (in case you haven't caught onto the theme yet). Once we got to the market I was a bit over it. We saw it for a minute, said bye to the guy and moved on (amazingly he was actually just being friendly and didn't want a tip!)
We went to Colombo Fort (district 1) which was right next to 11. On a map it looks like it's on the water but the water is all just a commercial port and land they plan to build up so for now not great. We stopped in the Kingsbury hotel for a bit of AC, bathrooms and water. When I asked if there was anywhere to fill waterbottles they were great and just gave us new ones.
Then we went to see the lighthouse, and then to see the Sambodhi Chatiya. We had no clue what it was, all we knew was that it's north of the lighthouse. It was literally right there. A huge thing on white stilts like it said. We still didn't know what it was but we saw that people were on top and we saw the stairs so we decided to go up. It said to remove our hats and shoes so we did.
More stairs. But at the top was basically a sort of temple? A big room with religious artwork. It was cool even though we still aren't sure exactly what it was.
From there I was exhausted so we took a tuk tuk to Gangaramaya Temple. I think it has the most concentration of Buddhas in the world. I'm not sure if it was due to Poya but there were lots of people there praying, walking around trees, there seemed to be a sermon and people got chocolate and drinks after. Everyone was dressed in white to celebrate. We saw the smallest Buddha statue in the world and buddhas made from all different materials from ivory to gold to wood and more. From there, we went across the way to the temple on the lake (the entrance to the larger Temple covered this as well).
There's also a small island on the lake that we took a short walk around, and then got a tuk tuk back to the apartment.
We had an hour and a half to get ready for the holiday and relax.
Meir was right, when we showed up at chabad, we were among the first. We didn't end up starting until over an hour later, and we sat by the front door a while helping people get in and just making sure it seemed like they belonged. When the seder finally started it was a lot of people, but fewer than I'd worried. We sat with an Israeli family with two daughters, and a young Israeli couple just out of the army.
We sang and laughed. The tables behind us got rowdy (they were Israeli but seemed like frat boys). The Rabbi also got drunk to the point where when he wanted to speak a bit he couldn't form a thought and started just singing instead. He even asked one of the Israeli guys if he'd say a few words of torah in English, which clearly would never happen. It was taking a while to wrap up after the meal so we finished on our own, but it was definitely a great experience.
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