Pettah in Colombo Sri Lanka

 

We took a guided tour of the more hidden parts of Colombo with a focus on Pettah. We went there on our own once because that's where you find a lot of the affordable little shops. There's a big produce market which is pictured above. It's a busy area where we saw some interesting sights including an old government building, a popular mosque with the tourists, and an old hidden neighborhood Hindu temple which doesn't show up on Google Maps with a name.

Galle Sri Lanka

The town of Galle and the old town inside Galle Fort are just two hours from Colombo, so it's an easy trip on a regular weekend. It's going to be good to live in Sri Lanka and see many things. Here's some things from the weekend.

Train to Galle & Sri Lankan Sunset

 

Galle is a 2 hour train or car ride south of Colombo, so we tried both! We took a train down and arrived in time for a lovely sunset from the ramparts around the old town in Galle Fort. We returned in an Uber car. It was a lovely weekend, so I'll break up the pics into two posts.

Uswetakeiyawa Beach

 

We took an Uber about 30 minutes north to Uswetakeiyawa Beach. It has a few swimmable areas, but we're more interested in walking barefoot on the beach instead of swimming. This beach was perfect for us. There were lots of big crashing waves on rocks, which caused us to take thousands of pictures. Well ok, I only took about 150 pictures and here's about 50 of those. We do have to show some constraint, don't we?

Lotus Tower and Galle Face Green Colombo

 

We prefer exploring on foot when we can because you never know what you might miss between destinations. There are many interesting Buddhist temples around the city that would be missed if you didn't walk a bit. Our area of Colombo actually has lots of usable sidewalks, so we're taking advantage of it.

Lanka Comic Con

 

Sri Lanka has a Comic Con. The crowd skewed younger but not as young as the one in Riga where we felt out of place. The interesting thing about this was that it was all outside in the heat and humidity of Colombo.

Biera Lake SW & Seema Malaka Buddhist Temple Colombo

 

Beira Lake is a series of connected man-made lakes. It was originally a big moat built by the Portuguese in the 1500s to protect a seaside fort. It was scaled back to these little lake basins as the city developed. It's a nice feature to have around us in Colombo. These are pictures of the southwest basin with the Seema Malaka Buddhist temple built on the water. The area around the lake could use some maintenance, but it's still a nice place to visit.