--- type: Place title: Colombo description: Sri Lanka's capital — modern, coastal and visibly wealthy in places, with four religions' architecture inside one afternoon and a tuk-tuk day tour for 3,000 rupees. tags: [sri-lanka, colombo, capital, tuk-tuk, temples, markets, religion, wifi] coordinates: {lat: 6.9389, lng: 79.8542} timestamp: 2026-08-06T16:50:00Z --- # Colombo The capital and largest city of [Sri Lanka](/countries/sri-lanka.md), 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](/places/pinnawala.md) — 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](/places/kandy.md). - **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](/tips/agree-the-price-before-it-starts.md). - **Say what you want done, and only that.** "Clean" was answered with black spray paint. ## Source - [First Impressions COLOMBO, SRI LANKA 🇱🇰](/videos/rY3bjlPSOic.md) — https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rY3bjlPSOic - [$50 Sri Lankan Beef Wellington 🇱🇰](/videos/qmBWRs9rDQY.md) — https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qmBWRs9rDQY - [Avoid This Sri Lankan SCAM!🇱🇰](/videos/Wpt_7rQ5Feo.md) — https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Wpt_7rQ5Feo - [Funny Challenge In Sri Lanka's Biggest Market 🇱🇰](/videos/BISOsMW8Avk.md) — https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BISOsMW8Avk - [Sri lankan Stranger Won’t Let Me Pay 🇱🇰](/videos/pg4cfGg2ACo.md) — https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pg4cfGg2ACo - [$200 Fine Dining in Colombo, Sri Lanka🇱🇰](/videos/fsmCzMDuwv4.md) — https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fsmCzMDuwv4 - [Kind Sri Lankan Family Gets A Reward 💰🇱🇰](/videos/mYRzDvy5mGI.md) — https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mYRzDvy5mGI