Facing the Indian Ocean and stretching, 14km along Sri Lanka's western shore, Colombo has within its boundaries an astonishing variety of people, historical monuments, simple temples, gleaming hotels, trendy restaurants, glittering casinos, fascinating department stores, tree-lined boulevards, mysterious lanes, old and new markets, shopping malls, and even skyscrapers. It never disappoints, although on a hot, hectic day it is certainly tiring.

It is not a city of romance like Paris, or of ruthless commerce like Hong Kong. nor is it dedicated to progress like Singapore, or to fun like Bangkok. Colombo has no such pretensions, being simply an ancient maritime settlement that has burgeoned into a modern metropolis. The traffic is heavy in the day, thins out late evening, and then the streets seem eerily deserted at night. There are no central squares but the city has its areas of character: Fort and Pettah; Galle Face Green and the neon - lit gaming clubs of the Galle Road; and clusters of theme restaurants revitalizing colonial houses. In the 1920s it was known as the Garden City of the East and visitors stayed for weeks. Now it's a city of traffic chaos and most visitors only pass through on their way to and from their beach resorts.

HISTORY

Colombo's history starts later than that of the Cultural Triangle. It was used as a port in the 8th century by Arab traders. The settlement there was referred to by a Chinese traveler in 1330 as Kao-lan-pu . Even today, the Sinhalese call it Kolomba, which seems similar. The settlement was fortified by the Portuguese in the 16th century with a wooden stockade, which the Dutch improved. The British, who came in 1796, extended the city south and east beyond the fort's limits, leaving a legacy of wide streets and spacious buildings, as though they knew that two centuries later they would be required to accommodate far more traffic and people than existed the. The resident population of Colombo city is estimated to be 2.8 million (2020). The fort itself has completely vanished, but the area is still called, in Sinhala, Kotuwa, meaning Fort.

ENTERTAINMENT AND NIGHT LIFE

Someone would not recommend Colombo as a fun city: action is not nightly and, even on a Saturday night, some discos may seem dull. Perhaps it is because the number of locals who can afford the time and money to go out on the town at night is small. However, some places will be packed, if you pick the right night (usually a Saturday or the night before a national holiday) and follow the crowd. You may be amazed at the amount of money Sri Lankans are prepared to spend on a good night out: bottles of premium whisky and good champagne on the table, chips worth thousands of rupees stacked on the roulette table. Extra - curricular activities are not a big feature of the city's nightlife, although there have been news stories of Thai and Russian good time girls being rounded up and deported. As well as Sri Lankans, fellow night revelers are likely to be expatriate workers, many from the Orient, and the occasional tourist out for a night on the town. It all seems pretty respectable. As in other cities, nightclubs in Colombo go in and out of fashion pretty quickly.