SRI LANKA GUIDE: COLOMBO TO GALLE : BEST OF STYLE & BEAUTY, SHOPPING TO MASSAGES

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Wednesday, 02nd October
SRI LANKA GUIDE: COLOMBO TO GALLE : BEST OF STYLE ...

Be respectful if you’re a woman; try and cover to mid-arm and leg. It’s really humid; you’ll probably sweat through three changes of clothes a day. Other than to a Buddhist Temple, where the women are expected to wear all white, the style is bold cottons and silks. The mélange of different style references (faded sportswear with gilded sari, patterned scarf, antique rose gold bangles, canvas sandals, and a twelve foot braid) is better than any street style blog look. Yet.

Shopping:
Mimimango
Barefoot
Paradise Road
Unlike many other Southeast Asian countries, there is no Chanel, Louis Vuitton, or other luxury goods boutique. There is no shopping mall. Odel is the closest you’ll get.

Local style:
City women wear button-down mid arm shirts and skirts and trousers. Middle-aged women often wear more traditional variations on the sari. Men wear oxford button down shirts with matching sarongs and sandals. Very colorful.

A bag of laundry (count the items before you leave them) will be washed, dried, ironed, and folded in your hotel or find a local laundry. Full service cost: $5.

Style:
Our recommendation is to bring your favorite simple tunic or dress and go to a tailor; for a few US$ you can have any piece customized and copied in a one of a kind printed cotton or silk fabric. Clothes are usually ready within 48 hours. Order a custom-made bedspread, which will cost you $20 with a few extra dollars for matching pillow shams.

In Galle, local people go to Manjari, a department store with everything you could ever imagine. On the top floor, Manjari stocks fabrics –from the cotton used for men’s dress shirts to densely embroidered sari fabric to sheer jewel-toned silks to amazing earth tone cottons. Everything. Starting at $2 US for a yard of natural cloth. You can buy fabric and take it to a tailor. It’s also a great place to buy sarongs and jewelry.

Shoes:
In a country where most people are barefoot or in flip-flops, no need to buy proper shoes.

Beauty:
Spa Ceylon has a really nice collection of products in their boutique and excellent beauty products in their boutiques. If you want a massage, go to a luxury hotel. Same thing with a manicure, wax, haircut, etc.

Use sunscreen! You don’t need moisturizer because of the humidity. You need to keep yourself hydrated because you sweat a lot. The sea and jungle keeps your skin moist.

Jewelry:
Sri Lanka is known for its sapphires and its jewelry. Jewelry stores are everywhere- from fancy shops attached to lux hotels to gem emporiums.

Basic advice for jewelry:
Unless you’re a gemologist, don’t buy fancy stones, because you just won’t know how good they are. As for semi-precious stones, go ahead.

Southwest Jewel Treats:
Most of the jewelry in this region comes from the moonstone mine in Ambalangoda. The miners don’t usually let people into the shafts, but if you walk the grounds and find the area where the miners descend and be really charming, someone will take you down and let you sift through the unpolished moonstones. At the store in front of the mine, which is the technical destination, you can purchase a myriad of raw or faceted stones and as with the tailors, the store proprietors are more than happy to use stones in any type of setting you may choose.

Our recommendation:
Ask the manager to see the garage, where you can dip your hands in buckets filled with rubies, sapphires, aquamarine, citrine, moonstones that have yet to be processed. Buy a little something or pay a thousand rupees for the experience. The shop owners will make custom-made jewelry. Although stones are usually authentic, the ‘market value’ of the gems is fairly low.

April 2013