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Today we began an overnight stay in Colombo, Sri Lanka. The “Democratic Socialist Republic of Sri Lanka” is an island country that used to be known as “Ceylon.” The ethnically diverse population of 22 million includes Sinhalese, Moors, Tamils, Malays and Chinese. Colombo, on the west coast, is Sri Lanka’s capital and largest city.
We didn’t dock until 2:00 pm, but our overnight stay enabled us to go out late into the evening. There were two dinner excursions available. We had signed up for the four-hour “Traditional Dances of Sri Lanka.” However, we were both assigned to the three-hour “Beira Lake Dinner Cruise.” This turned out to be a fantastic excursion.
We took separate buses to the Cinnamon Lakeside Hotel. Here, all guests joined to board the hotel’s floating restaurant. This is a barge that detached from the dock, then spent several hours cruising around Beira Lake.
Beira Lake is an artificial lake built by the Dutch in the 1500s to provide protection against their inland enemies. The lake was once stocked with crocodiles. Today, the lake is a beautiful and peaceful setting within Colombo’s business district.
We started upstairs, with an open bar and hors d’oeuvres that could have been dinner. But later, we went downstairs where there was a sumptuous buffet of Western and Asian food. The entire time, a three-piece combo played dinner music. Gail, the unofficial Viking dance ambassador, got several guests up dancing. We had the surreal experience of being aboard a dinner cruise in the middle of Sri Lanka, listening to an accordion and conga drummer playing American country western music from the 1970s. It was a magical and memorable evening.
