Colombo

The capital and largest city of Sri Lanka, on the west coast. Harry lands here at the start of his trip and leaves immediately; he comes back to see it three weeks later.

His first impression is modern — skyscrapers, new buildings, visible wealth in some districts — and much more so than anywhere else he has been in the country.

Getting around

• A point-to-point tuk-tuk runs about 500 rupees.
• A full-day tour of the main sights by tuk-tuk: 3,000 rupees, 1,500 each. Worth it because the sights are spread out and awkward to link up on your own.
• Some tuk-tuks have removable roofs. Drivers who have them tend to open them only for day tours.

What there is

• A city beach directly off the main road, reached across two live railway lines, and small — the city is right on top of it. Galle Face is the better one, about ten minutes further.
• Pettah market: the biggest and busiest market of Harry’s Sri Lanka trip.
• The Red Mosque in Pettah, red and white striped, the market’s landmark. Its main entrance is for worshippers at prayer time, and shorts are not acceptable.
• The old Parliament building.
• The Town Hall, opened 1928, which Harry compares to the White House, and Victoria Park opposite.
• An observation tower, closed for the month when he visits.
• A Buddhist temple complex — 400 rupees, about $2, and the ticket covers a second temple — with green water, gold statues, prayer flags in the trees, a museum of ornaments including Chinese pieces, and a sacred tree.
• A Hindu temple, tall and densely carved with peacocks and figures.
• A cricket ground in the middle of the city.

Opening hours by religion

Worth planning around, and told to him on the day: Buddhist temples are open 24 hours. Muslim and Hindu ones have set visiting times — the Hindu temple closes at five, and they miss it.

Elephants in the city

A working elephant is washed at one of the temples, lying down while a man scrubs it with a coconut husk. It is chained. Harry repeats what he was told at Pinnawala — that chains are a precaution against aggression rather than a sign of mistreatment — and does not test it here either.

The stupa, and the view

A very large Buddhist stupa in the port area is the best viewpoint Harry finds in the city. The gate is locked; they were told they could go over it, and told firmly not to cross one bridge at the top.

From it, effectively the whole of Colombo: the coastline, the container port, the naval and fishing harbours, the CBD and its tower, and the Red Mosque in the distance.

The observation tower is the obvious alternative and was closed for the month when he tried it.

Eating well

• A fusion restaurant Harry rates 9 out of 10 — European technique with Sri Lankan spicing — for about 10,000 rupees, just over $50, covering two starters, two mains, four drinks and a dessert for two people.
• What to order there: the beef Wellington, which is beef loin cooked in a traditional Sri Lankan beef curry, mushroom with sweet Sri Lankan spices, wrapped in puff pastry; kochchi chicken skewers, marinated in green chilli; devilled chicken, crisp-fried and hotter; and baked curd for pudding.
• A snack van works the streets playing a loud tune so you know to flag it down. A doughnut is 100 rupees.
• Street sunglasses: asked 5,000, sold at 1,800 — about $9 — and better made than the $3 pair from the coast.

Aluthkade, the food street

Near Pettah, and per the video description the city’s culinary destination — especially after midnight, running to two or three in the morning. Harry arrives at the start of the evening and finds it filling up.

• Sweet string hoppers, 20 rupees each — rice-flour noodle cakes with coconut and jaggery inside. This is where Harry finally eats the dish he had been chasing since Kandy.
• Samosas — vegetable, egg, chicken and beef — layered, very crisp, oily, and not spicy: black pepper, onion and tomato rather than chilli.
• Butter cake, lemony, from a bakery on the street; bread at 130 rupees a loaf.
• Everything is made in the open and in bulk, and kitchens will let you in to watch.

Behind the food street are residential alleys worth walking: brightly painted houses, washing strung overhead, narrowing until they barely pass and then looping back. Predominantly Muslim, and nearly everyone stops to talk — this is where Harry is invited into a home and given the clearest account of the economic crisis he gets anywhere in the country.

Harry rates the people here the friendliest he met in Sri Lanka. On this street a baker refused his money altogether and a samosa seller told him, unprompted, that he had overpaid — a day after the shoe cleaner, a few streets away.

Crab, at the top end

Colombo has a seafood restaurant that ranks in Asia’s fifty best, and the way it works is worth knowing whether or not you eat there.

• Crab is sold by graded size, each with its own name, shown on a lit board. When a grade sells out the kitchen rings a bell and the light goes off.
• Crabs run to about 2 kg routinely, sometimes 2.5–3 kg.
• You choose black pepper or garlic on the crab. Pepper crab is boiled in a pepper stock for 12 to 30 minutes by size, and arrives cut but not extracted — you are given crackers, a hook and a pincer, and no instructions.
• The prawns are deep-fried and then simmered about 15 minutes in garlic and chilli oil. The head butter — the fat inside the head, eaten with fried garlic bread — is the thing Harry rates above everything else he ate in the country.
• Crab liver pâté with kithul palm syrup and a coconut crème brûlée flamed at the table are the other two dishes worth naming.
• Expect a big crab to yield less meat than its size suggests.

Practical

• Around 30°C in the middle of the city, and he finds the heat more tiring here than on the coast.
• The best internet of his whole trip was in a Colombo hotel: 66 Mbps down, 46 up, with the router in the room.
• Armed police and security are visible and friendly.

Pettah market

The biggest market in the country, and the densest thing in the city: indoor halls, long runs of near-identical stalls, and live roads running through the crowd with cars, tuk-tuks and motorbikes on them.

• One block off the main run, the tourists stop entirely — a working district where there is nothing aimed at a visitor. One block back and it is the tourist street again. Harry finds this by getting lost and it is the most useful thing he says about the place.
• Sellers are not pushy. He remarks on it twice, and specifically that big markets usually have someone working an angle.
• Some traders buy from other stalls and resell on foot, walking the market with an armful of stock.

Prices, all after a short haggle: a counterfeit smartwatch 400 rupees (~$2.50); sunglasses 400–600; a wig 300; a counterfeit branded shirt 800 (under $5); socks 150; fruit and sweets around 100.

The one thing that went wrong

A shoe cleaner near the market took Harry’s trainers off his feet, deflected the price question about ten times, cleaned them, sprayed them black without being asked, and then quoted 3,000 rupees for work he reckons costs 200. He paid 2,000 and retired the shoes, which were about two years old and had cost around $70.

He calls it his first bad encounter in two and a half weeks in the country and asks viewers explicitly not to generalise from it. The shoes went to a stallholder at Pettah market rather than a bin.

Harry’s tips

• Take a driver for the day rather than the ride. The sights don’t chain together on foot and a day rate is a few dollars each.
• Cover your legs if you want to go inside anything. Shorts cost him the Red Mosque.
• Do the Hindu and Muslim sites before five, and leave the Buddhist ones for whenever.
• If you ask a price twice and get no number, walk away. Asking ten times did not help — see agree the price before it starts.
• Say what you want done, and only that. “Clean” was answered with black spray paint.

Source

• First Impressions COLOMBO, SRI LANKA 🇱🇰 — https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rY3bjlPSOic
• $50 Sri Lankan Beef Wellington 🇱🇰 — https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qmBWRs9rDQY
• Avoid This Sri Lankan SCAM!🇱🇰 — https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Wpt_7rQ5Feo
• Funny Challenge In Sri Lanka’s Biggest Market 🇱🇰 — https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BISOsMW8Avk
• Sri lankan Stranger Won’t Let Me Pay 🇱🇰 — https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pg4cfGg2ACo
• $200 Fine Dining in Colombo, Sri Lanka🇱🇰 — https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fsmCzMDuwv4
• Kind Sri Lankan Family Gets A Reward 💰🇱🇰 — https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mYRzDvy5mGI