Our second day in Colombo began with a mix of a traditional English breakfast and Sri Lankan. I realized now that none of us took pictures – but we had fresh fruit, thin pancakes (basically crepes!) with Nutella, Bombay toast (eggy bread/French toast), and other regular breakfast items.

After breakfast, Sabrina took us to two different spas looking for massages. Would you believe there were two within two blocks of her house? The first one had openings – and we could get a 90 minute massage for 13USD, but we didn’t want to take up too much time – so we decided to check out the other spa. This one offered neck and shoulder massages and we could get them at the same time.

Before our trip I had been in extreme pain with the equivalent of lower back sciatic but in my upper back/shoulder/neck area. I had seen a chiropractor for the first time and he recommended getting a massage or two while we are in Sri Lanka – doctor’s orders!

After the massages we had lunch. We had a dish called Lamprais. Straight from Wikipedia – Lamprais is Sri Lankan dish that was introduced by the country’s Dutch Burgher population. Lamprais is derived from the Dutch word lomprijst, which loosely translated means a packet of food.

Ours was wrapped in banana leaf and contained rice, chicken, an egg, a fish cutlet, a ton of spices, and other veggies. It was really tasty! (I hope you’ve caught on that we’ve been eating like royalty while we’ve been here – it’s been a great food holiday!)

After lunch, we ventured out to do some shopping. Sabrina took us to a cute store called BareFoot where we were able to pick up some gifts for friends and also, for ourselves. The shop was super cute and very reasonably priced. After doing a little light shopping we went to two temples. The first was on Beira Lake – Seema Malakaya.

Just a few blocks away we ventured over to another – larger temple – Gangaramaya Temple. This one was much more elaborate and you could tell there was a lot more money associated with this one.

Our driver took us over to the Fort area – this was an old Dutch Hospital that was converted into a shopping and restaurant area. We found the equivalent of America’s Bath and Body works and bought a few more gifts for family and friends.

Then we wandered over to a tea lounge where we had iced tea to try to cool off after all of the heat.

After cooling off – we decided to go right back into the fire and head over to the Kingsbury Hotel and hung out at the Sky Lounge. Beautiful skyline view of Colombo – not so pretty view of an island that some Chinese businesses are building right in front of it.

For those of you who are wondering we did see the hotels were the bombings took place in April. The Kingsbury Hotel was one of the locations – there has been an increase in security. Some of the more popular hotels now have security checks as you walk in now.

After the Sky Lounge we ventured back to Sabrina’s. We rested and freshened up before dinner – where we had another traditional Sri Lankan dish – Haleesha. This kind of reminded me and Andy of a Minnesota casserole except with way more flavor. It was primarily chicken based – there was a chicken cream, large noodles, and huge chunks of chicken. Really delicious and tasty! We haven’t had a bad meal yet!

We then had the pleasure of meeting Sabrina’s old friend – Annie. We went out to a wine bar – and then the skies opened up. There’s nothing quite like a torrential downpour on Christmas Eve! We still had a great time and really enjoyed the time getting to know her.