Gangaramaya Temple, Colombo

The last day of our trip was spent in Colombo. Colombo didn't look like a typical South Asian city, I imagined it to be much like Chennai. With its lush gardens and newly constructed spotless roads, it looked much like a low-key European City. Trees lined the well-laid roads looking over the Indian Ocean and luxury chain hotels dotted the other side.

We didn't have any plans for sightseeing, so we headed to Gangaramaya temple. The temple was situated in a quiet lane with lots of trees. The temple is a Buddhist one, but to our surprise, there were Hindu Gods like Lingam, Ganesh, and Shakti. The place was quiet and had some magnificent Buddha statues. We lingered for a while enjoying the silence-- squirrels dabbled past us, running along a big Banyan Tree covered with prayer flags. 

Ranjith offered to take us for shopping to a small souvenir shop. We got a good wooden mask. We wanted a big Buddha statue and right place was Laksala, the Sri Lankan government's handicraft shop. This is a must visit if you want souvenirs, tea, gems or statues. The collection was huge and the price reasonable.

It was time to come back home. Ranjith had almost become a family in the past five days. He was kind and babysat our little one many times for us. He really made our trip stand out. Three cheers to him and Red Dot!