Long before the crowds and chaos, there is a moment of calm. A stillness. An unexpected beauty.

My tuk tuk comes to an abrupt stop outside the Jami-Ul-Afar Mosque in Colombo’s Pettah district. It’s early on a Sunday morning and I am here to take some photos of this colourful area before it all gets too much.

The air is heavy following a downpour overnight. The clouds are thick and grey and puddles linger at the side of the road. I step over one to reach the relative safety of the pavement across from the ‘Red Mosque’, a jewel in Colombo’s architectural crown.

It’s hot and humid and we are stood uneasily inside a badly lit shop. Sharp knives are carelessly left on any flat surface that can be found. A large spider crawls up a wooden beam directly behind my wife and settles, part-camouflaged beneath a heap of pineapples. There’s a bucket of discarded leaves, skins and chopped ends of fruit rotting away as flies circle its circumference.

Welcome to the fruit stall.

Since travelling we’ve become attuned to what’s in season and what each place does best, and have subsequently spiralled into some kind of unnamed fruit addiction. One that now quietly drives the intent of our days.

Each day, everywhere in the world, the sun will set (extreme solstice points notwithstanding). Sometimes it’s visible, other times it’s hidden behind a thick blanket of overcast sky. On the motorway, outside your home, or at the beach. Often in places you’ll never return to.

The business of day-to-day life usually makes most of us forget this daily occurrence. Travelling allows permission to stop, and quite often provides the perfect canvas for it to project its palettes of reds, oranges, pinks and purples onto the most beautiful landscapes.

I interrupt my usual travel writing (no, this is not a travel blog) with something closer to home.

Pizza.

Or more specifically, the endless wave of pizzerias now blighting the UK, spreading across cities like an unstoppable beige tide of sourdough, San Marzano tomatoes, and buffalo mozzarella.

I am now in Koh Kood and shifting here has been a change of pace.

After the bustle of Bangkok, and the constant movement of travelling through Australia, it’s been quietly comforting to spend a couple of weeks in one spot. To wake up without needing to think too far ahead. To let the days arrive as they are.