Galle's fort walls extend to the sea

Built by the Dutch in 1663, the colonial city of Galle is a pleasure to walk through, keeping within the confines of the fort area. Our journey took us there on a Sunday, which happened to also be Mohammad’s birthday, so all museums were closed. Everything else was open, including boutiques, antiquities shops, restaurants, and old churches. Here at WoWasis, we’re museum junkies, so we were forced to walk around instead, an extremely pleasurable experience. And we found what we felt was the most comfortable inexpensive hotel in Sri Lanka (more on this later). 

The Galle experience for us was the sheer joy of looking at old residential buildings, with their fascinating doors, windows, and facades. Many are being reshored and refurbished, and we walked into a few of them, no workers on Sunday, but the doors were still open for us and our cameras. Galle is still delightfully ramshackle, and our guess is that this is how Macau must have once looked, before the beautiful old Portuguese buildings there got refurbed. Macau is still beautiful, but Galle is more of a snapshot in time, before the onslaught of commercialized tourism, which we figure will eventually hit here, too. Now’s the time to come here, before it does. 

About that hotel, the New Old Dutch House. We make it a point to stay in mid-range hotels and B&Bs, close to real people, and away from high prices and staff that frankly doesn’t care whether you come or go. But mid-range in Sri Lanka can mean dodgy, too. And we’d been saying in some awfully dodgy places before Galle. So the New Old Dutch House was welcomely refreshing, a small oasis within the walls of the fort, and close walking distance to everything we wanted to see. The rooms are beautiful, air con and mosquito nets work, and internet and breakfast are included. Rifai, who owns the place, is wonderfully accommodating, and it turned out to be our best stay in Sri Lanka by far. We recommend phoning ahead for reservations, and the phone number has changed from that given in a number of guidebooks, so use the one below. As we suggested in another post, buy a SIM phone or carry yours with you, and get a Sri Lankan phone number as soon as you can, especially if you’re travelling by car & driver, where itineraries can change at a moment’s notice. More about that hotel: 

Ramshackly colonial buildings add to the mystique of today's Galle

New Old Dutch House
21 Middle Street
Fort, Galle, Sri Lanka
Tel: 0094-91-223-2987
Mobile: 0094-777-900-903
www.newolddutchhouse.lk