Right, so I've just checked out of my wee capsule hotel. Now I'm gonna go stay
at a Scottish hotel. No I'm not going back to Scotland. Haven't been there for
ages. Don't plan on going back there any time soon.
No, this is a Scottish hotel, in Sri Lanka. We've seen the Japanese casual hotel
in Sri Lanka, now we're gonna see a Scottish hotel in Sri Lanka
this hotel's called the Steuart, a good Scottish name. Of course, Sri Lanka, a good
colonial past, the British were here after the Dutch and after the Portuguese, so it
has a lot of history here. A lot of street names like Prince of Wales Lane and stuff
like that so yeah we're gonna see how they do a Scottish hotel here.
It's going to be half an hour's walk from here. Don't really feel like walking in the baking sun.
So what I'm going o do is, I'm either going to take an Uber - an Uber Tuk Tuk, or I'm going
to try and get someone to give me an Uber price, so we'll see how that one turns out
see if you can pick this up. If you can see, to the Steuart, from here
it's coming out for a Tuk-Tuk at 114. I'm gonna start walking a bit
and start offering Tuk-Tuks 100 and see how we got on, but I'll pay up to like 120 or
something otherwise tell them to do one. Sorry mate, I'm just using your wee darkness
bit here. It was too bright for me to film my phone over there.
cheers pal, yeah you're good man. Right let's have a wee walk. This guy getting shaken down
by the Police. I'm gonna hide the camera.
Seems that guy was getting a bit of a shakedown by the old cops.
Right, let's try and stop one of there Tuk-Tuks and ask if them if they'll take us there for
100. See how we get on. One thing I've noticed so far, about Colombo though, is it's much
cleaner City than my first impressions of Delhi were. Here, look, you've got legit pavements
that you can actually walk on with no obstacles. The traffic seems fairly
orderly. There's not the constant beeping that there is in India with the horns
to let everybody know where they are. In fact there's none of that, I don't hear
any, any horns beeping and no piles of trash by the side of the roads.
Although there's wee things like this but it's not like you're stepping over
bags of trash like you are in Delhi. So the first impressions are pretty
decent. There goes the beep, that's for the bus and I'm gonna stop one of these tuk tuks
and see if we can get a ride to The Steuart for a hundred, a hundred rupees, which is
like 50 cents like forty-three pence or something
British. So let's see if we can stop one.
Hello. Colombo Fort, you can take me 100 yes? okay, 100 okay, yes thank you
Steuart Hotel, you know, Steuart Hotel, thank you
nice and simple
okay smash the window is he
now he's no doubt going to get a hefty fine from the police.
This guy's getting well shaken down. See this
Looks like that one's hit the front one and smashed
his back window. Oh well.
So I've just noticed that these Tuk-Tuks are fitted with meters, like this you can see here.
I already agreed to give the guy 100 so we'll see what the meter turns out
If there meter turns out at more than 100 I'll give him whatever the price is, and if it's less I'll
just give him a tip I guess. Okay thank you, so he's got me here and the fare is pretty much
bang on 100. 94, that's brilliant. Okay mate, cheers. There you are, thank you, see you, bye
Brilliant, right apparently my hotel is somewhere around here. Here we go
The Steuart, Colombo Sri Lanka and it has a pub. Beautiful flag of Saint Andrew
there. The Steuart, let's have a wee look.
Hello my friend, checking into your establishment.
Hello there, I'm checking in, I am a wee bit
early, is that okay? We will just check the room
Have a wee check, thank you.
What's this, a wee be pub in here? That's nice. Pity I'm off the drink.
Oh is this for me? Thank you very much sir. Very good of you.
Just what I needed after no water in that Capsule Hotel. You got like 8.1 on
booking.com just stayed in a place that was eight point
eight, wasn't that great so see what we can do about your review, okay so I'm
just giving you my signature okay
okay you do the rest, yeah I booked on your own website. Yeah, yeah that is already paid.
A really good special offer, I think it was a free breakfast right is that on my booking? Yes it's including breakfast. Brilliant.
Usually check in time is 2 sir, but you are lucky. Very nice because I need a shower so it's gonna be it's gonna be lovely
7:00 till 10:30 OK, the day that I check out I'm going to leave
like 6am, there's no way to get like a packed breakfast? I'm getting the
5:55 train a.m. so I'll probably be leaving here after like 5:30 or
something like that. OK so 5 o'clock anyway we will ask them to arrange the packet breakfast. That'll be fantastic and I'll eat that on the train and that'll
be brilliant. Okay thank you very much, I'll see myself to my room, it's okay I'll see
myself. I'll go there myself. I'll go myself is okay okay yeah I have
only this, travelling light, travelling light okay thank you.
Cheers. Okay let's have a wee look around. First thing I notice, tartan on the
carpets. Beautiful makes me feel very welcome and what have we got here on the
wall? Shields of MacFarlane and Ferguson. Ferguson there with the hog
absolutely beautiful. What else have we got here?
Well it's just a big nice clean room, which is what I want after staying in that wee
capsule pod. I've no need for all this this space but yeah I feel like I
feel like I'm benefiting from it after staying in that claustrophobic wee capsule
pod. Now let's see what's out the window, we're only on the second floor so
not much of a view. It's just buildings basically. See what we've got here. Oh smells of
delicious food and it's not coming from that Burger King either. Although I didn't have
breakfast at that capsule place because they don't serve food so I am starving but
Burger King would seem like I a good shout right now but I'm smelling like, it must be from
that place, the crab restaurant which is more authentic Sri Lankan than the
Burger King but down here this is the old Dutch hospital right there and
they've turned that into a shopping precinct. It's like trendy bars, trendy
restaurants and stuff so yeah I guess that's where I'll be having my breakfast /
lunch, or brunch I guess it's called. As for this place, well they do have a menu
here, is this a drinks menu? An in-room dining menu. Right let's see
what Scottish food a Scottish hotel has on their room service menu.
Fish Cutlets, yeah not really Scottish
unless it's deep fried. If it's deep fried, oh well with curry mayo. Oh that's definitely not
Scottish. Chunky chips. We do love our chips there. Every meal is served with chips
so I'll give them that. That's authentically Scottish and we've got
Cheese and tomato sandwich, ham and cheese sandwich. If those are
cheese toasties, we do a lot of cheese toasties in Scotland. If they're ordinary sandwiches
I'm not giving them that. And then we've got lasagna.
Lasagna, in a Scottish hotel in
Sri Lanka, with Australian beef. No, that's not Scottish at all. And then we've got
Swarna's Lamprais. I'm pretty sure that's something Sri Lankan and I don't know what
it is, but I'm probably gonna try it. Probably
gonna, probably gonna try it somewhere else where it isn't 600 rupees, sounds like
something you'll probably get on the street or something like that and then
just fudge brownies and stuff so nothing really Scottish there at all but what I'll do is
I'll go down to their wee pub which looked beautiful.
Nice and dark and they airy and I'll see if I can get a steak pie or maybe a
deep-fried Mars bar or something down there. Something authentically Scottish, you
know. Doubt they'll have a deep-fried Mars bar, maybe the steak pie. Let's have a wee look
at the bathroom here, oh nice and big, so I really need a shower
After staying in that capsule hotel and this is lovely, a nice big shower
cubical with the overhead rain shower. I'm gonna enjoy that. That's what I'm
gonna do right now guys. Shower and then food.
Do you have a food menu? Let me have a wee look.
Got the menu.
I do see on there, there is an Aberdeen steak pie. There's also an East End Sheppard's Pie,
which is English, so not gonna go for that, I'm gonna go for the authentic
Scottish Aberdeen steak pie served with spinach and mashed tatties.
So that'll be the one.
Hello there, I'd like the Aberdeen Steak Pie. This one, Aberdeen Steak Pie. I am sorry.
Steak Pie no. Really? That's not good it's the one that I wanted.
What else do you have that's authentically Scottish? Okay, give me one minute, I want to check.
You're going to check? Yeah, check. Normally we warn that this needs 30 minute. It takes 30
minutes? Ahhh okay I can wait, yeah okay.
OK so I don't know if we're getting an Aberdeen Steak Pie. He says maybe I can get it, maybe I have
to wait 30 minutes. I'll see what happens.
yeah it's gonna take 30 minutes aye? yes. okay I'll just wait, right what do you have
to drink? You got any Irn Bru? Yes. Okay. What do you want? Irn Bru. You have Irn Bru, no?
Lion brew? No, you don't have it, nah. What you have? What you have to drink?
Coke Zero, Coke Light? Have you got a drinks menu? There's no soft drinks on the menu here.
ahh sorry, yeah
Let's see, okay. Cocktails, nope. Wine, nope. Okay, non-alcoholic here we go.
No Irn Bru on here.
Diet Cola is more than twice the price of normal Cola. Taxed for being healthy
What I'm gonna take is a lemonade. Lemonade. A wee glass of lemonade.
Aberdeen Steak Pie. Waited half an hour for this. At least you know it was cooked
fresh. Right, I'm going to dig into it and see what it tastes like
Ohhhh, crust pastry.
Steaming hot. Right, let's have a first mouthful.
Ohhh
Oh
Lovely, could do with a bit of gravy though. Thankfully.
Try the mince tatties.
So, some nice butter, mixed through that. That's lovely, that is. The Steak Pie itself
pastry nice and crispy, soft underneath. Not a lot of meat in there, we're gonna give them that
but it was like four quid. Like a thousand rupees, maybe like five quid. It was like
a thousand rupees something, so it's like a fiver for this meal, not a lot of meat
in there but for the price, acceptable.
thumbs up from me.