World Cruise: Colombo, Sri Lanka

From Thailand we sailed southwesterly across the Bay of Bengal down to Sri Lanka (formerly, Ceylon), located off the southern coast of India. This island nation is slightly smaller than Ireland, but is occupied by 21,000,000 people. Almost 5,000,000 people per day come into the port city of Colombo for work each day so it is a bustling area. There are over 8,000 taxis in the City called Tuk-Tuks which are small, open 3-wheel vehicles.

We looked forward to this stop on our world cruise because Brian's father spent some time here during World War II in the Royal Navy when it was part of the British Commonwealth and was called Ceylon.

We took a tour of Colombo that drove us by a busy, seemingly endless marketplace called the Pettah Bazaar, a colorful Hindu temple, an upscale residential area known as Cinnamon Gardens (named after the spice trades of yesteryear), and a public monument commemorating Sri Lanka's independence from Britain. We visited the national museum which was very interesting. At the museum there were several groups of students touring the museum. They were dressed in their school uniforms and their female teachers were in their colorful saris. The children all greeted us with "hello's", "goodbyes" and "what is your name?". They were very engaging and fun as they giggled at our responses.

Next, we stopped at the beautiful Taj Samudra Hotel and enjoyed tea and a snack in the rooftop restaurant overlooking the beach area facing the Indian Ocean. Our last stop was a visit to Gangaram Temple, a Buddhist temple that was filled with colorful statues and shrines.

This stop in Sri Lanka was a good transition for us offering a cultural change from southeast Asia before we get to India. The City of Colombo is divided into 15 distinct districts. Colombo 1 which included the Pettah Bazaar area was very "third world" with considerable poverty. Colombo 3 and Colombo 7 were just the opposite with modern office buildings and 5-star hotels and shopping areas. Sri Lanka is rich in natural resources and is definitely a developing area. Our tour guide told us they are working on a beautification program in Colombo to attract more foreign investment which was evident to us. The Chinese have built a sports arena in the city center and the large port was extremely busy with containers and cargo ships from all over the world.