Irene visits Colombo!!

Introducing..... Sri Lanka! The beautiful litttle island off India packed with cultural riches and many thousand years of ancient historical sites. For those who are curious and want to look up the island on the map, it is actually the land chipped off India (look South), surrounded by the vast Indian Ocean. It is more than a dot on the map, at least larger than Singapore island.
The really good thing about having Matthias working at different locations is that, I get to go wherever he goes! So as u people can guess, Matthias is right now located in Colombo, the heart and capital city of Sri Lanka, working on a development project for the GTZ.
We had 10 days for 2 short trips... and the rest of the days when Matthias was working, it was up to my own to explore the city he currently lives in. I would agree with him that living there long term would probably induce a love-hate relationship between u and the country. Do not get me wrong, Colombo is in many ways beautiful. It faces the Indian Ocean, it has beautiful sunsets and what I really find attractive about the city alone is the people. Sri Lankans have been amazing. The smiles on their faces seem to be a permanent feature and they go all out to help u even without u having to ask. What I mean is that, although they are simple people, their smiles have been the most genuine. Perhaps they are especially receptive towards tourists, or perhaps, like what most of u would believe, that they depend heavily on tourism as a revenue, thus if they have an opportunity to make a single cent out of u.... heh.
The hate part comes when u go out alone and are greeted by smiles and plaqued by never ending questions from EVERY SINGLE PEOPLE u see on the streets. They are so persistent and tuk-tuk drivers never leave u alone even if u ignore them. Yes I know, the people have been so friendly but sometimes, it is tiring not having some time alone without having tuk-tuk buggers trailing u. Haha.... and of course, there have been perhaps, the language barrier. I noticed that even though they don't know the answers to ur questions, they will never say they don't know. Wow.


Stalls selling food and drinks dotted along the Indian Ocean coast.... what I never understood was, every stall is the same.
The sunsets here are so gorgeous... Matthias told me that it was because of the dusty streets which rewards them with the beautiful sunsets. Hehe.





And impressively.... modern.
And the World Trade Centre.... when I was waiting for Matthias to get off work. :)

Some more pictures of Colombo.....

The Buddhist Temple by the lake... what's its name again? Seema Malikkaya Temple. Oh my lord, I have a good memory.

Sri Lankans consists mainly of Sinhalese and minority of Tamils, the majority being Buddhists and also, Hindus. The cultural history is so rich, u can see them in the number of temples and also, the design of the temples itself. I mean of course, this picture I have here is of a simple one, u'll have to visit the bigger ones away from the city itself.

Oh I think this is quite amusing. The picture u see here is actually that of a hospital's laundry... it is hung out to dry next to the extremely dusty streets of Colombo. :)

Of course.... not forgetting, the food is YUMMY!!! I still missed it some days...

The Kottyu man!! Chicken or Egg Kottyu, anyone? YUMMMMMM.