Blogs from Colombo, Western Province, Sri Lanka, Asia

For years our visits to Sri Lanka were always an iffy proposition due to the civil war which plagued this country for the last several decades. The beautiful island is now enjoying relative peace and prosperity. Our first port of call was Trincomalee. Everywhere you travel in Sri Lanka you see remnants of the colonial times. The British, Dutch and Portuguese have left their marks with religion, the legal and educational systems and architecturally. There are hundreds of buildings that would make you swear you were in London. English gardens abound. Sir Thomas Lipton would still feel right at home in his beloved Ceylon. But interspersed with all that, there is a strong Tamil and Singhalese culture which is reemerging from under the cloud of war and the latest catastrophe to befall this small island. The ... read more

Colombo is Sri Lanka’s largest city and former capitol before the government moved its administrative offices down the road to a new site. Most government bureaus remain in Colombo including the army and navy and foreign consulates. Our tour in modern buses begins at the Kelaniya Buddhist Temple where we see a variety of Buddha’s, including a large reclining one, and wonderfully decorated walls and ceilings in shoeless feet. Our city tour passes by the famous Clock Tower, Pettah Bazaar, Colombo Fort, and British built Old Parliament Building, President House and Town Hall. We passed through the residential district of Cinnamon Gardens and the large campus of the University of Colombo plus Independence Square enroute to the National Museum. The museum has a vast collection of early religious idols and other artifacts. Our sumptuous lunch at ... read more

COLOMBO, SRI LANKA AND AT SEA—Wednesday and Thursday, April 10-11, 2013 Colombo, Sri Lanka (Formerly Ceylon, an island nation off the eastern coast of India)--Wednesday, April 10, Day 6 Before we left home, we had booked only three guided excursions and on this day were scheduled to be driven by tour bus south to the very tip of Sri Lanka to the old Dutch Colonial Port of Galle. It was planned to run for 8.5 hours and we thought it would be a couple hours to drive down and then have plenty of time to explore the folklore museum, see stilt fishermen, and visit the old walled fort that is a world heritage site before having to return to the ship for an 8:30 departure. We had no inkling of the traffic and congestion we would ... read more

"AYUBUWON" Through this blog I will try to provide as much information as I can to describe the majestic beauty of Sri Lanka and the A to Z of travel to Sri Lanka. Let me describe the word "AYUBUWON" that I mentioned in the begining of the blog.It means "Hello","Welcome" in Sinhalese(local language of Sri Lanka). Let us start with all pre requisites for travelling to Sri Lanka. After booking the tickets, we need to apply for the visa.Actually its an "Electronic Travel authorization (ETA)".ETA is not required for residents of Maldives and Singapore.Residents of all other countries need to apply for an ETA. Applying for ETA is not a big deal as we can easily log into the site "http://www.eta.gov.lk/slvisa/ ",fill in our details,pay the necessary fees and submit.Usually within 24 hours ETA approval is ... read more

January 5...I'm at my uncle George's apartment, overlooking the Galle Face Green park and the ocean in Colombo. It's a bit gloomy and mostly overcast, but hot and humid outside, much like yesterday but without the persisitent drizzle. Apparently the rain that Colombo has been experiencing recently is somewhat unusual for this time of year. The journey from Calgary to Colombo was long but uneventful. The travel gods were smiling, as the flight from Los Angeles to Singapore (with a 2 hour layover in Tokyo) was not full and there was an empty seat between myself and the next passenger in my row. It was unexpected to have a bit more elbow room but very welcome when trying to manoeuver into a comfortable sleeping position. (a note for Dean W. - the plane was an Airbus ... read more

Firstly, apologies for being quiet on the blog front for a few days - the past couple of days have consisted primarily of 5am starts and full day coach journeys, which will be explained in more detail towards the end of this blog! Having been introduced to Colombo on an unusually quiet day, it was decided that we needed to be thrown in to the deep end, and shown how busy the streets normally are. So on Saturday, we were taken to Pettah, an enormous wholesale market in the middle of Colombo. However, the day didn't start too well, with Nick and Kirsty getting lost because their tuk-tuk driver didn't know where the clocktower at the market was - a tribute to the sheer size and intricacy of Pettah's streets! When the group was eventually reunited, ... read more