Another early morning trip

to the beach, during which we do our best to make use of a decomposing pair of body boards. I end up being really good at that move where you get the rope tangled around your leg up to your crotch and simultaneously irrigate your sinus cavity with salt water. I forget what it's called. Later at home we insinuate ourselves into the kitchen to observe and learn while chef Shaminda handily assembles the family a traditional Sri Lankan breakfast. Shaminda has a bright face, wide eyes, and white toothy smile. He never seems annoyed by our questions and nonstop pointing/tasting, but he may also be imagining sliding a filleting knife between my ribs. We have a hellish failure trying to make the cellophane-thin rotty skins he seems to whip up in his sleep.

Breakfast starts with of a heap of "exotic" fruit (common as dirt here - not ready to get over that yet) and yoghurt. Neat, chewy cylinders of flour and red rice are steamed in a tall pipe over the stove till firm. These guys and "string hoppers," vermicelli-thin noodle cakes, are used to manhandle a stupidly delicious daal lentil curry, the pastel green colour of which could have acted as a paint sample for retouching an early 80's Oldsmobile. We everything with Pol Sambol (?? prepare yourself for me to spell everything wrong in this culture), a hot mix of just-shredded coconut, lime and chilies. I have said this before, and i will say it again 1000 times: it.is.delicious. I eat and eat and eat.

The afternoon unfolds around the construction of our crab trap. After some time consulting online brains, we scrap the advice and make a maverick design of our own. Following a few hours with chicken wire, pliers, bolt cutters, ties and rope, a vessel so fine it would likely bring a seasoned wharfman to tears has been assembled.

We fill the bait tube with ralph-worthy chum and push the family's wobbly boat into the lagoon to leave it overnight. Once almost a private pool, the lagoon has lost some of its caché for dipping since the appearance of a 6 meter (you read that right) crocodile which bit a fisherman almost in half. The monster once appeared feet from where AT's parents were swimming. (He actually ends up surfacing the next day, meters from our trap. Devil!)

A day trip is undertaken to nearby Galle fort: a huge Dutch military settlement dating from the 1600's, now holding hundreds of homes, shops and hawkers. We have Ceylon tea and scones with raspberry jam and double cream on the veranda of the Galle installment of the Amal suites (check these dudes out: amalsuites.com) which Renate has supplied with stately haleconias. She is a passionate gardener, and the amount of greenery back at the house is nuts, even by Sri Lankan standards.
We spend an hour exploring the alleys, shops and palisade walls of the fort, and take a few nice pics before heading back. On the way home we stop at a roadside fish stall and buy a couple of mullet fish and some squid and watch colourful fishing trawlers pull in to shore as a storm rolls in from the sea.

Dinner:
-Indonesian fish packets of green curry, coconut milk, lemongrass and galangal
-fried squid with black pepper in red rice flour with coriander and white wine lemongrass dipping sauce.
Conversation:
The controversy of MSG. AT and I took the pro side, Bob and Renate the con, and I think Barnaby refereed.
After:
-shot into town for a beer run. Sri Lankans don't drink a lot of beer, most preferring harder stuff like Arrak, a potent liquor made out of coconut sugar, so domestic brands are usually warm and taste not dissimilar to hosewater). We come home around dusk and find AT's parents on the dock. The sky is a rich, cloudy blue, and we join them to drink our haul watching giant, dog-sized bats fly around overhead. Retarded.