Galle

Galle's harbour made it one of the oldest ports in Sri Lanka, known to Arab, Persian, Indian and Chinese traders. A stone slab set up by the Chinese admiral Zheng He's fleet in the early 15th century, inscribed in Chinese, Tamil and Persian, was found near the town and records offerings made at the port. Cinnamon, gems and elephants left from here long before any European ship arrived.

The Portuguese reached Galle in the early 16th century, by tradition driven in by weather, and built a small fort on the headland. The Dutch East India Company took the town in 1640 and from 1663 rebuilt the defences on a far larger scale, enclosing the whole promontory with bastions, a sea wall and a landward front, and laying out the grid of streets, warehouses and churches that survives. Galle became the Dutch administrative centre for the island's south and their principal port until the British, who took over in 1796, developed Colombo's harbour instead. The town then settled into the role of a provincial capital, and its old quarter escaped modern redevelopment largely because trade had moved elsewhere. The fort is inscribed as a UNESCO World Heritage Site.

The 2004 Indian Ocean tsunami struck Galle with great force, killing thousands in the district, wrecking the bus station area and the cricket ground and flooding streets around the harbour. The fort's ramparts, however, held, and the walled town was largely spared. Reconstruction was followed by a boom in restoration, as old houses became hotels, galleries and shops, and Galle became the fashionable end of the south coast.

Galle's character comes from a mixture that is unusual even in Sri Lanka. Within a few streets of the fort stand a Buddhist temple, the Dutch Reformed Church, an Anglican church and the Meeran Jumma Mosque, and the fort's Muslim community, descended in part from Arab and Malay traders, has lived here for centuries alongside Sinhalese, Burgher and Tamil families. Burgher surnames of Dutch origin are still common in the city.

Cricket is close to a civic religion. The Galle International Stadium, squeezed between the ramparts and the sea, is among the sport's most recognisable grounds, and matches fill the fort with visitors while local spectators watch free from the walls. The city has also become a centre of the arts: the Galle Literary Festival in January draws writers from around the world, and galleries, design shops and craft studios occupy old merchant houses.

Older crafts persist in the district. Beeralu, bobbin lace introduced in the Portuguese period, is still worked by women around Galle and Weligama; gem cutting and jewellery have long been Galle trades; and Ambalangoda, up the coast, supplies the carved and painted masks used in low-country dance and exorcism rituals. Low-country drumming and dance accompany temple processions. Manners are those of the south generally: modest dress, shoes off at religious buildings, and a courtesy that can mask firm bargaining.

About 100,000 people live in the city, with many more in the surrounding suburbs and villages of Galle District. The fort holds only a few thousand of them, and its population has changed as houses became hotels and second homes — a source of steady debate about property prices and who the walled town is now for.

The economy rests on trade and services in the new town, the port and fishing harbour, tourism along the coast, and the tea, rubber and cinnamon smallholdings of the interior. Galle is the administrative capital of the Southern Province, so government offices, courts, schools and the teaching hospital are large employers, and the University of Ruhuna's medical, engineering and allied health faculties are in the city.

The day begins with the fish auction and the market, and by mid-morning Main Street is jammed with buses and tuk-tuks. Afternoons are hot and slow; the evening belongs to the ramparts, where families, courting couples and cricketers gather until dark. Current concerns are familiar ones for a tourist city: rising prices inside the fort, pressure on old buildings, coastal erosion and traffic in a town centre never built for it. The industry's recovery after the 2022 economic crisis has been a relief to many households that depend on visitors.

Southern cooking is at its most confident in Galle. Ambul thiyal, the sour dry fish curry made with tuna, black pepper and goraka, the dried fruit that gives it its sharpness, is the regional signature and keeps for days without refrigeration. Fresh seafood follows: seer fish steaks in coconut curry, prawns devilled with chilli and onion, crab curry eaten with the fingers, and cuttlefish cooked black in its own ink.

The everyday meal is rice and curry — a mound of rice surrounded by dhal, a fish or chicken curry, a green such as gotu kola or mallung, fried aubergine in a sweet-sour sauce, and pol sambol, grated coconut pounded with chilli, lime and dried fish. Breakfast and supper bring hoppers, the bowl-shaped fermented rice pancakes often served with an egg, string hoppers with coconut sambol and dhal, and pittu steamed in a cylinder. In the evening the clatter of kottu, roti chopped on a hot plate, comes from every small kitchen.

Cinnamon grown in the hills behind the city flavours both curries and sweets, and Galle's long link with the spice trade remains a point of pride. Buffalo curd with kithul treacle is the usual dessert, alongside wattalappam, a spiced jaggery and coconut custard from the Muslim community, and kalu dodol, a dark, sticky sweet of coconut milk and jaggery. Thambili, king coconut water, is sold from roadside stands, and toddy and arrack are made from the coconut palms along the coast.