Local Colombo City Tour

Pettah is a neighborhood in Colombo, Sri Lanka located east of the City centre Fort. The Pettah neighborhood is famous for the Pettah Market, a series of open air bazaars and markets. It is one of Sri Lanka's busiest commercial areas, where a huge number of wholesale and retail shops, buildings, commercial institutions and other organizations are located. The main market segment is designed like a gigantic crossword puzzle, where one may traverse through the entire markets from dawn till dusk, but not completely cover every part of it. Pettah is derived from Tamil: Pettai, an Anglo-Indian word used to indicate a suburb outside a fort. Today, the Sinhala phrase, pita-kotuwa (outside the fort) conveniently describes the same place.

Galle face green has always played a special part in the lives of Colombo-dwellers, although it is the British who are credited with making it a place of social interaction, as it remains today. In colonial times, the British embraced Galle face green as a leisure ground especially in the evening when elite ladies were said to promenade the length of the green. Active pursuits of cricket, football, polo and the famed horse races also took place on Galle face green. Horse-racing become popular in the 1840s and the Ceylon turf club was founded here sometime between the and 1860, although official records were not kept until 1866. The formal structure of the walk along the seaside was built during the period of governor ward in 1859.

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Shri Ponnambalawaneswaram Kovil, a sacred Hindu temple built with granite in an amazing architectural style is located in the heart of Colombo.

Along with the Town Hall Building, the Edinburgh Hall was built alongside it and was opened at the same time. The Edinburgh Market market too was designed as an extension to the main building and the same architectural features with its open plan and identical cast iron details could be seen. This hall was used for stage plays and dramas. After a long period of disuse, the building was renovated in 1980 and and then president Ranasinhe Premadasa and in 1984, the adjoining building was converted to a museum of the town hall. The renovated Edinburgh Hall now converted to an market place and rented out to street hawkers by the Municipal Council.

Hidden in the busy Pettah Market on the narrow 2nd cross street lies a colorful mosque generally called Rathu Paliya in Sinhalese or Red Mosque ( or Red Masjid) in Engish and Samman Kottu Palli (“Mosque for Muslims of Indian origin”). The mosque was built in 1909 by the Pettah Muslim community to fulfill the religious needs of the Muslims. The designer and builder was H L Saibo Lebbe and the two-storeyed mosque, incorporating a clock tower, was commenced in 1908 and completed the following year. Lebbe was influenced by the Indo-Saracenic architectural style, which was devised by British architects in the late 19th Century India. Essentially it’s a hybrid style that draws elements from native Indo-Islamic and Indian architecture, and combines it with the Gothic revival and Neo-Classical styles favoured in Victorian Britain (witness the Houses of Parliament).

Kayman’s Gate called “Kaiman Dorakada” in Sinhalese, was an entrance to the former Colombo Fort located at the foot of the Wolvendaal Hill in the Pettah district of Colombo, Sri Lanka. A historic free-standing bell tower still stands at the site, now at the intersection of Main and 4th Cross Streets. The second Colombo Fort was constructed by the Portuguese in 1554 as a fortification of their trading post at Colombo, and captured by the Dutch in 1656. Under the Portuguese, the fort’s principal entrance at the eastern rampart was Poorta Reinha (“Queen’s Gate”), a large tunnel guarded by drawbridge and moat. “Kayman’s Gate” comes from the Dutch word Kaaiman, crocodile.

The business district of Colombo, with Government buildings, banks and other commercial ventures, 5 star hotels and department stores, is still called ‘Fort‘, because that is what it once was. The Fort of Colombo, which like Jaffna and Galle was really a fortified town, was demolished around 1870 in the interest of urban development, soon followed by most of the buildings within it. Today nothing is left but its shape in aerial photographs, the regular grid pattern of the streets, some parts of the walls, the hospital, the lonely Delft Gate that is now a useless passageway hidden among modern high-rise, hardly recognizable parts of the Governor’s House, and some odds and ends, like an ugly and lost little warehouse in the harbour. Of course today the historical remains are more appreciated, as monuments to history and sites of tourist interest, so most of the buildings that do remain have recently been renovated.

Wolvendaal Church (Wolvendaalse Kerk) is located in Pettah, a neighbourhood of Colombo. It is one of the most important Dutch Colonial era buildings in Sri Lanka, and is one of the oldest Protestant churches still in use in the country. In 1736 Governor of Ceylon, Gustaaf Willem van Imhoff, sought approval from the Dutch East India Company (Vereenigde Oost-Indische Compagnie or VOC) to demolish the existing church (Kasteel Kerk) within the Colombo Fort and construct a new one on the same site. However, the VOC refused this request, and it wasn’t until the arrival of Governor Julius Valentyn Stein van Gollenesse in 1743 that the impasse was overcome. He decided that the new church would be erected in the area beyond the city walls, which at the time was swamp and marshland. The Europeans mistook the packs of roaming jackals for wolves, and the area became known as Wolvendaal (Wolf’s Dale or Wolf’s Valley).

The beautiful Gangarama Temple is famous for its imposing buildings, and is complete with a chetiya, bo tree, image house, Simamalaka, relic chamber containing the relics of the Buddha and Arahat Seevali, museum, library, pirivena, and residential, education and alms halls. It is decorated with stone carvings, brass work and many other forms of Buddhist art. It contains row upon row of Buddha statues in the meditating pose, alongside miniature stupas arranged like a staircase. As one enters the temple, one will see a huge mural on the wall depicting the ‘Atalo Dahama’ (the eight vicissitudes of life) – gain and loss, good repute and ill repute, praise and censure, and pain and pleasure – to give the message that one shouldn’t be disturbed by these.

Though many of the leaders who fought for our independence might now be no more, with the remnants of colonial times fast dwindling, there are only but a few tangible elements which are left to remind us of that monumental struggle, the sacrifice of many and the final triumph. The Independence monument at Colombo 7 is today the best symbol of that moment in time when the course of Sri Lankan history was changed. Though it is only once a year that the accountable authorities remember to mow the lawns, prune the bushes and clean the columns of this historic edifice, it still remains the most recognisable monument related to our Independence.