Following the great success of my Sri Lankan short sleeved linen shirts procured in Galle a mere 15 years earlier…
…so great the success that those well worn shirts are starting to look well worn…we resolved to procure some replacements.
But Galle & Tangalle are not the same place. Prashan thought we only had a few choices near the resort and suspected that Tangalle itself might not offer the pure linen quality we wanted.
He recommended Smart Buy, a mere five minute walk down the road. There were two problems with our plan to visit that one. Firstly, we set off after breakfast, during the mad dogs & Englishmen hours. Janie started to melt about three minutes into our five minute walk. Secondly, and existentially for our mission, the place was inexplicably closed on a Saturday. Frankly, it looked closed down.
More research was needed, as all we succeeded in getting locally was a couple of (admittedly super smart looking) white linen shirts. We wanted bold colours.
In the end, we hired a tuk-tuk later in the day (when it was far less hot) and went to Sanu Cool Fashion in Tangalle which, contrary to Prashan’s fears, had a super selection of really good quality short-sleeved shirts. Not all were of the quality I wanted, we needed to rummage and reject some, but plenty were.
Janie and I disagreed on some of the colours. Janie really liked the dark, deep blue (see headline picture) whereas I was more attracted by the louder colours, which are more likely to raise comments and eyebrows in places like the Lord’s pavilion.
The obvious answer was to buy several, including Janie’s and my picks of colour. Not only the three depicted but three green ones too. Lord knows I’ve paid some dues, getting through, Tangalle up in blue. 😉
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