Assorted photos from the Galle Literary Festival 2009

Marie Burrows jots down memories over breakfast at the Galle Face Hotel, Colombo, after having just attended the 3rd Galle Literary Festival in sunny southern Srilanka.

Here Marie sits chatting with friends on the Amangalla Hotel verandah, Galle, before the start of the festival:

We were most fortunate to spot the New Delhi journalist Julian West, who also happens to be a relative of Marie's. Julian is the author of a novel, Serpent in Paradise (Atlantic Books, London, 2007) and was one of the Readers at the 2008 GLF. Writing clearly runs in the genes:

Galle is well-stocked with distinctive colonial period hotels, warehouses, houses etc. Below is a photo of the shuttered verandah of the Galle Fort Hotel (down from the Dutch Reformed Church) where many a lime soda mysteriously vanished:

Looking from the main gate of the Galle Fort towards the Hall de Galle, a venue for many festival events:

Marie senses history: her Srilankan forbears, top legal eagles of 3 generations earlier, would certainly have been familiar with this District Court inside Galle Fort:

The office of an Attorney-at-Law & Notary Public, just inside the main gate. Let's describe it as unpretentious:


I have managed to resist the temptation to add a thought bubble to the following pic of Geoffrey Dobbs and Germaine Greer. I've thought of many. If you have any suggestions, why not add them to the "Comments" at the foot of this blogpost? I may even relent if your idea is seriously fun and reasonably non-libellous...

Most of my photos and comments about the festival can be found here.

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Now I reveal the minutiae and grunge of the rest of the trip, but frankly, that's one of the most interesting aspects, yes/no? Noticing detail is a key to writerly credibility.

As an antidote to all that Literature and Intellectual Stuff from the festival, Marie Burrows browses some local dress shops in Main St, Galle, Sri Lanka. One with English signage dubbed itself "Rohan's Highly Fashionable Accessories". A feral cow moo-ed quite anxiously when M dared to approach its shop:

This pharmacy [below] cryptically instructed patrons to "CHANNEL YOUR DOCTOR HERE" (huh??). It was also selling bottles of "Peni-Fresh" for men, and a surprisingly large box containing a "Soft Cervical Collar"... which turned out to be a neck-brace. A nearby beauty parlour courageously offered 'Face Repairs".

Behind the shop (local lingo: backside) was a squalid dwelling with a door of hessian sacking; it smelled alternately of urine, cooking spices, and grey water:

Weighing watermelons tossed from a truck:

A hotel offering "PACKAGE OR TRANCEPORT ONLY" deals. One has to remember that the word 'hotel' in parts of Srilanka often signifies a small cheap restaurant that doesn't offer accommodation. However, tourist-savvy locals are cottoning on quickly to the West's notion of 'hotel'. Likewise the terms "petrol shed", "bus halt", and "coloured lights" (=traffic lights). Snack foods are"short eats". "Lunch packets" are curry & rice, wrapped in paper and eaten with the (right-hand) fingers, a way of life here.

A toilet bowl showroom adjacent to a florist. Town-planning would be a novelty here, and certainly grasped as an opportunity for corruption:

...a resurrected colonial relic in disarmingly appropriate colours?

This Bajaj 3-wheeler taxi was christened "Queen of the Night". Its proud macho owner fitted it out with a genuine Chinese F1 aerofoil, a ladder just like an SUV, and a fake truck exhaust, not to mention acres of chrome. So cool. Pity about the engine, the smell, the carbon footprint, and the noise:

Roman-style 'over-under' tiles comprise most roof-tops - I hope the fibro underneath is not actually asbestos:

...and the same from inside, looking up through a trapdoor in a ceiling, above an almost vertical wooden ladder:

A gem-polisher works at a local shop as a tourist drawcard:

His handiwork wasn't really so handi:

House for sale in Galle, 1 million rupees. Foreigners can purchase house and land in their own right, unlike here in Thailand:

Chocolate-boxy sunsets behind the mosque, taken from the Ladyhill Hotel, the highest point in Galle:

The view from our room at the historic Closenberg Hotel, Galle. It's quickly obvious to the visitor how our nineteenth century forbears quickly nabbed all the best and breeziest spots along the coast. Hey, who put the Post in Post-Colonial?

Kandyan Dancers drumming loudly and doing acrobatics for a wedding at the Closenberg:

There is still much damage apparent along Srilanka's coast from the 2004 tsunami. Many places have been abandonned, and there are many more graveyards:

There has also been a rash of new building using Aid money, mainly in an area of southern Colombo (probably where there are most votes). I can only applaud disaster assistance of any kind, but the new developments do look rather depressingly grey, barren and soul-less.

More typically, most shanty towns have been privately re-built using foraged materials, with the result that many shacks along the railway look identical to the way they looked when we last did the trip back in 2003:

Feral(?) goats roam the railway tracks foraging god-knows-what to eat: these ones approached us insistently with large golden lakes of imploring eyes:

One of the landmarks of southern Colombo seen from the train is the historic Mt. Lavinia Hotel [photo below]. One of our new friends from the Galle Literary Festival, Shevanthie Goonesekera, has published a wonderfully illustrated book on its history during Ceylon's British colonial period. It is titled Mount Lavinia: The Governor's Palace (Paradise Isle Publication, London, 2006). Obligatory reading for any curious visitor.

On a warm day, Colombo's beaches can get busy. Not surprising in a city of some 6+ million. Privacy can be an issue, as numerous young couples snogging under umbrellas attest:



Closer to Colombo, the waters of drains feeding into Beira Lake look green and cool - but perhaps it is better to stick to bottled water...


In Colombo, we stayed at the historic old Galle Face Hotel. Yeah, yeah, OK, but hey, ya just gotta do it once. In retrospect, I wouldn't do it again. The rooms are too small and decrepit for the money, although the grub's just fine.

We had dinner with our friend Kumar - hi Kumar! - we'll let you choose the venue next time, though.

Marie sashays sassily down the opera staircase and into the ballroom for the benefit of attendant media...

...and relaxes with an OJ in the setting sun:

So does some chap posing as a retired British army captain. I was tempted to photoshop a colonial-style pith helmet onto the dude:

Breakfast table on the Galle Face Hotel lawns:

Of more pressing importance than predatory breakfast squirrels was the fact that we had arrived two days before Srilanka's celebration of Independence Day. There was a daily routine of military rehearsals by the Rajapakse government, intent on impressing the Colombo Sinhalese middle class with their slaughter of Tamils in the north... exactly like the Israelis killing Palestinians. President Rajapakse had been trying to fast-forward the war so he could claim victory by the day of the parade. So many Tamil citizens have died or suffered for Rajapakse's personal power ego and electoral campaign. So many journalists have been killed for speaking out.

Below: a typical sand-bagged gun emplacement in outer Colombo, one of hundreds. Taking a photo of heavily-armed guards near the hotel on the Galle Face Green had been too risky, even without flash and through tinted windows. The camera could well have been confiscated - so I waited for an unattended post further out of town, en route to the airport. Folks in Colombo are suffering a great deal of fear in this civil war, largely generated by government policy and spin.