Whitewashed, with windows overlooking the ocean. If we looked ceiling-wards we would see there is no fan, but it doesn’t occur to us. ‘We’ll take it,’ I say to the owner. She is an elegant, pale Moslem woman dressed from head to foot in white. Her name is Mrs Kalid. She scrutinises us carefully. She is, after all, letting us into her home. ‘You may stay,’ she nods at us. ‘Would you like a Sprite? Or a cup of tea?’ Ruby and I are in Galle. In biblical times King Solomon bought his gems, spices and peacocks here. Now it is a picture-postcard walled town, a tiny place that hasn’t changed for centuries. Its fort walls overlook a cricket pitch on one side and the sea on the other. ‘This ground is famous,’ Ruby says. ‘Some very important games have been played here.’ Inside the walls are Dutch churches with blue alcoves, old colonial hotels with large verandas and whitewashed mosques from which white-robed men pour out at regular intervals. Banyan trees drape over the streets and public squares.
