Mostly an overcast, cloudy day. Known to happen this time of year, on the former Ceylon. The rainy season is usually over by now, but not always, clearly.

In the afternoon, when the drizzle let up, we decided to go for a walk in the neighborhood. Just up the street, looking for a grocery to buy a thing or two.

The hotel we are in has a curious dynamic to it.

The Palm Beach Resort sits right next to the A2, the two-lane road from Colombo in the north, a road which is never quiet and often quite busy.

But because the hotel is walled off from the road and oriented towards the Indian Ocean, which is pushing breakers onto the shore every minute of every day … we cannot hear the road from our room. Nor from the hotel lobby. It’s just the white noise of the waves — which is far preferable to traffic noises.

The real world is out there, however, and we encountered it while on our walk.

The young woman at reception did not advocate walking. At all. We asked which way was more likely to lead to little shops, because we hoped to buy a few things, and she conceded it would be north, towards the city of Galle. Not that we would or could get there, by walking …

So, we were maybe 20 yards out of the hotel driveway when we encountered about a dozen men who were on the bridge over a river/inlet, watching their nets in the water below. Several of them said, “Fish?” as we walked through. As in, would we like to buy one? Not sure how that was going to work, actually … we wait as they drag a fish up on the bridge and hand it to us?

The people in this part of the country certainly have an entrepreneurial spirit, and from their advanced interest in us as we came into view, I’m guessing that this is the slack season for tourists from Europe. (Everyone assumes we are Germans, who apparently constitute the majority of Western tourists in this part of the island.)

So, just past the bridge we encountered the first man who was keen to drive us into Galle on his tuk-tuk (a motorbike with two seats in the back; a sort of three-wheeler). For 300 rupees, he would take us to Galle in his tuk-tuk (not that we could see one with him), wait for us “two, three hours” and drive us back to the hotel.

He also was available to drive us to Bird Lake, not too far into the bush, which also features Buddhist shrines, he said. He introduced himself, and we shook hands and said we would keep him in mind, as we finally tore ourselves away.

Our next would-be driver was far harder to shake. He caught up to us about five minutes later, even after we had crossed the road twice — to look at a little impromptu burial site and then to get back on the side of the road (the right) facing traffic.

Like the first man, he was very thin. He had about a dozen itineraries available, and a vivid imagination. We could do or see anything on the island, with his help. The one offer that stuck with us was that he would to take us to Galle (and back) for 200 rupees, undercutting his neighbor’s price.

Anyway, we continued to walk, and he stayed right with us, asking questions, trying to figure out what we were interested in doing or might be interested in doing … and eventually it developed into something resembling a conversation. His English was the best we have encountered in the Koggala area; better than any of the hotel staff. Perhaps he hones it by using it on Germans, who generally speak English.

He said he was a fisherman, who often went far out into the Indian Ocean. He said it was a Buddhist holiday, today and tomorrow. He said he survived the tsunami here in 2004 because he saw it coming and rushed to a hill not far from the road.

He tailed us all the way to the Fortress Hotel (so named because it is surrounded by a high wall), which our unbidden guide assured us was ruinously expensive. “$250, $300 every night!” He also insisted that the drinks at the bar there were beyond expensive, too.

We considered going inside, in part to shake our new friend, but I was sure he would be waiting for us when we came out, after our ruinously expensive drinks. So we just peeked in the door and saw a half-dozen security guys and turned around and headed back south on the A2.

At a park about halfway back, Leah actually managed to get our guide to leave us for a bit by saying (for about the third time) that we were not taking a tuk-tuk anywhere on this particular day, but that we would remember where he lived and if we had need for a tuk-tuk, perhaps we would return. We also bought some drinks at a little store (and were almost certainly overcharged, given the cost of everything else here) … and sat on a bench to drink them while watching boys frolicking in tidal-pool area, leaping off a flat rock into the water.

Leah went down to investigate the tidal pools, which were crawling with crabs, and while she was away a young man with a crutch approached me and said he was having an operation tomorrow, and would I care to help him? I fished around in my pocket and gave him 20 rupees. It was the first bill I could find. It turns out to be a ridiculously small amount of money, about 20 cents. The guy with the crutch seemed OK with it, though, and off he went.

Five minutes later, another person appeared over my left shoulder, and he appeared to be a kid with Down Syndrome who was perhaps blind in his left eye, as well. He said nothing, just put out his hand. I dug into my pocket and pulled out another bill, 50 rupees, and he turned away.

Both amounts are quite low, but you can actually buy things here, especially for 50 rupees. About five minutes later we bought a package of wafer cookies for 4o rupees, and that may well have been the tourist price.

Just past the cookies hut, our guide was waiting for us in front of his white house, which appeared to be fairly new, apparently rebuilt since the tsunami. He had a photo album he had been talking about all along, which had photos of his car and his tuk-tuk, as well as a picture of the island … and his wife came across the road and shook our hands, and I left it to Leah to patiently explain our situation. “Just our for a walk, heading back to the hotel now, maybe tomorrow, thanks.”

We made it back to the hotel, which the neighbors apparently do not attempt to enter, and the power was out. Which would not be a major problem for another hour or so, when it got dark.

The hotel was unusually busy in the evening because the “Old Boys” from some nearby high school or university were having a get-together in the outdoor dining area, complete with buffet dinner and live band. About 20 of them, and maybe 60-70 with their families.

The power came back on after a generator went on line … and about 8 p.m. the local power must have resumed because the generator stopped running but the lights stayed on.

We slept with the door open, inside our mosquito netting, with the sound of the ocean lulling us to sleep.