The spray stings my eyes as I lean over the yellow ramparts of the Moon Bastion. In the distance, the starburst tops of coconut trees line the shores. Behind me lies the green oval of Galle International Stadium, one of the most picturesque in the world, fringed on two sides by water. Winds vectoring off different latitudes spiral overhead, bringing with them the scent of the sea, cinnamon and sailors who navigated the Indian Ocean in the quest for new trade routes. As I gaze at the roiling waves breaking on Galle Fort’s walls, and further out where the colour turns a beautiful aquamarine, I realise this is where Asia ends — between here and Antarctica lies only the mysterious deep of the ocean.
The trip to Sri Lanka was for a cousin’s wedding, and Galle just happened to be the kind of place I discovered when one journeys elsewhere. From Ahungalla, a pretty seaside town south of Colombo, I drive on a road that plays peek-a-boo with white, sandy beaches peppered with driftwood. Fearsome masks from roadside stores and the walls of a famed museum glower as the car weaves through Ambalangoda’s traffic. At Telwatta, where the Indian Ocean tsunami killed 1,700 people travelling on the Matara Express that ran parallel to the sea, smoke rises in curly wisps from the joss sticks lit at the memorial. Hikkaduwa, which featured in Anthony Bourdain’s No Reservations , is chock-a-block with foreigners in swimwear, surfboards tucked under their arms. The route snakes past water buffalos lounging in swamps, Buddhist stupas framed against picturesque mangroves, petrels gliding over backwaters, salted fish hung out to dry, tiled houses awash with bougainvillea and fruit stands that girdle the promenade. It seems as if Sri Lanka, which, for long, has been a luminous heartache of a country, is finally shedding the scabs of a civil war.
It’s blistering when I cross the Galle Railway Station and ford the bridge that leads to the fort at the edge of town, with one pedicured foot in the Indian Ocean. A UNESCO World Heritage Site and the largest remaining fort in Asia built by European colonisers, it was first made of mud and palisades by the Portuguese in the 15th Century, when they trundled their cannons eastwards. By 1640, the Dutch, who had the run of the Straits of Malacca, had fortified it. Its grand warehouses, palatial residences and quaint churches were built during the century-and-a-half of Dutch rule. By the late 17th Century, as the Union Jack unfurled across Asia, the fort passed into British hands and remained a colonial headquarter until independence in 1948.
With its two gates — one opening to land, the other to sea — and its many bastions, the best way to explore the fort is to traverse its cobbled streets or walk along the ramparts. Dahlias stand stock-still in their flowerbeds at the foot of the clock tower erected for Queen Victoria’s jubilee as I climb the gradient to the Star bastion lined with wooden carved figurines and life-size statues of uniformed soldiers. Beyond lies the Dutch prison, eerie and melancholic, where men who opposed the idea of the Empire were once housed. The dull thud of bat meeting ball at the stadium can be heard as the breeze rustles the ankle-high grass at the Moon bastion; its sloping moss-green walls draped with honeymooning couples posing for the perfect shot. The rambling roads are strewn with frangipani blossoms as they wind their way through the quadrangle to Church Cross Street. Houses fuse colonial decor with Asian motifs, their arched verandahs encased in creepers, a study in light and shadow. A life-size statue of a dinosaur grins foolishly from its meshed confinement. Patches of coral sit embedded in the lime-and-mortar walls of buildings, now cafes and art galleries, set deep in tropical gardens. The scent of the sea is overpowered by the citrus notes of the breadfruit.
At the corner stands All Saints Church. Inside, its pews are shrouded in sheets — the Gothic style church is being renovated. Built over what was a courthouse, its altar stands where the gallows once were. To its left is the National Maritime Museum, an old Dutch warehouse that once housed maps, flora and fauna of the region and shipwrecks, but much of that was destroyed in the tsunami. To the right stands the Galle Fort Hotel, set in a Dutch mansion.
The suite is like a family scrapbook, filled with portraits and knick-knacks. Lunch is served in a colonnaded verandah on tables covered in crisp white linen with orchids leaping out of vases. The fish is a winner, and the wattalappam dissolves like a dream. The more upscale Amangalla was home to Dutch commanders and British soldiers. Outside, Church Street leads past a visual pandemonium of stores that sell jewellery, artefacts and furniture.
There’s the threat of a tropical thunderstorm as I head towards the lighthouse, which has replaced the older one that signalled to ships for centuries. Beyond the cove lies Flag Rock, where young boys dive into the ocean for pennies. The call of the muezzin from the Meeran Jumma Masjid sends great flocks of birds into flight. Children cycle on the ramparts and the dark nimbus plays catch with the sunbeams. It’s a scene filmmakers chase entire lifetimes.
A lone swimmer bobs in the cerulean waters near the shoreline. He, perhaps, has the most picturesque view of Galle — seeing it the way most travellers did, when they came in from the ocean, all those centuries ago.
