[Worldtrippers home] [Crystal home]
Sri Lanka, formerly “Ceylon,” is a small teardrop-shaped island country southeast of India. It was Portuguese, Dutch and British before becoming independent in 1948. Colombo, on the west coast, is Sri Lanka’s capital and largest city.
We visited Colombo for two days last year on the 2024 Viking World Cruise. You can read about those adventures here:
While we enjoyed ourselves immensely last year, Gail was not keen to go out in today’s 90° heat and 70% humidity. (The wind was so strong, it was blowing down shop stands on the pier.) She is still getting used to some new blood pressure medication, and she was afraid of passing out.
So we contented ourselves with another short walk off the ship. Gail visited several jewelry shops trying to replace the lost stone from her “mother’s ring,” but had no luck. She will probably wait until we are back in the states.
Today’s biggest activities occurred aboard ship. Crystal has two specialty restaurants on board: Umi Uma (Asian) and Osteria d’Ovidio (Italian). Guests are allowed a total of two complementary reservations between these two restaurants.
Tonight, we had dinner at Umi Uma. This fusion restaurant was designed by world-renowned master chef Nobuyuki (Nobu) Matsuhisa, a Michelin-Star chef. The food was extraordinary – Gail says she wouldn’t mind using both of our reservations here.
Russell wore the eye-catching white “dragon” sports coat he got in Vietnam last year. And we were dressed in formal attire because…
Tonight was also the first of two formal nights aboard ship. The “Crystal White Dress Party” is a big dance event in the center of the ship. Though white dress is optional, we both packed clothes specifically for this occasion.Crystal Symphony has a female vocalist, two professional dancers, two production singers, six production dancers, a seven-piece band, a violinist and a DJ. All of them were there for an hour of live music. Gail and I normally spend dance parties getting folks out on the dance floor, but we barely needed to do that – the professional dancers took care of pulling folks out of their seats. We called it a night and left when the live music switched to a DJ.
We gain a half hour tonight due to time zone change. Tomorrow will be Russell’s first lecture!
