Colombo

04.04.2015

We took the air con minibus from Galle for the journey up the coast to Colombo. It took three and a half hours for the 125k trip hugging the coast, with a long struggle at the end through the Colombo suburbs. We opted for just 2 nights in Colombo, staying at a quite new hotel with compact comfortable modern rooms (and large flat screen TV, fridge and even an AC which could be left on overnight comfortably!). The hotel was in the southern district of Bambalatipiya, which is more interesting and reasonably priced than the downtown Fort area, and there are very regular local buses for the trip downtown. On the Saturday afternoon, we headed into the Pettah - the bazaar area - which was absolutely heaving with people, tuktuks and the rest - complete bedlam! Then we headed over to the Fort area - a mix of old colonial buildings, interspersed with skyscrapers, with the container port on one side and the cordoned off area round the Presidential palace on another. The area is a bit strange, probably because it was much targeted during the conflicts and a lot of businesses moved away. Once through the Fort, we arrived on the sea front and Galle Face Green and joined the crowd of locals along the promenade the historic Galle Face Hotel. Although Bambalatipiya, the district where we were staying, borders the sea, we found that there was no access to walk along there because the train track runs right next to the sea. However, the area does have some different and interesting places to eat/drink, which we thought it would be rude not to testcheck during the short time we were there: Greenlands (good and inexpensive South Indian food) in an old colonial mansion, Siam House (Phad Thai, Green and Red (very hot) curries, etc - also in very pleasing surroundings), Cricket Club Cafe and Bradman Bar (very English!) ... Also, there are outlets for several interesting shops there - Barefoot, Odel, etc. The "famous" House of Fashion" should have been there too ... but has moved to another district entirely. So, we had to get the bus there. They sell considerable quantities of "surplus" labelled clothes made in Sri Lanka for the well known European brands (Desigual, H&M, Zara, Pull and Bear ....) at less than a quarter of European prices! So, our Sunday (and last day in Colombo) was spent having a look round Bambalatipiya, finding House of Fashion and picking up a couple of clothing items there, resting from the heat (34&deg in our hotel room and then heading down to Galle Face Green again for the scene there at sunset.