इस अनुभव के बारे में
Colombo is easy to drive through and hard to understand. This private three-to-four-hour walk changes that. Your guide went to school in Kotahena, beside St Lucia's Cathedral, and has worked in Colombo Fort since 1993, in the old Victoria Arcade on York Street, opposite the Grand Oriental Hotel. So the Fort Heritage Precinct and Pettah come to you as places someone has lived and worked in, not a row of façades: five hundred years of Sri Lankan, Portuguese, Dutch and British Colombo, told fairly, chapter by chapter, at an easy pace, with short tuk tuk hops between districts.
The walk begins in the Fort at the cell where Sri Vikrama Rajasinha, the last king of Kandy, was held after his capture in 1815, before his exile to India. From there you continue to the Dutch Hospital, among the oldest buildings in the Fort and now home to cafés and shops, and the Clock Tower that once doubled as the city's lighthouse. The Central Bank's museum tells the island's story through its coins and notes, and a few steps away stand Cargills, the red-brick department store of colonial Colombo, and the Grand Oriental Hotel, British army barracks from 1837 and later a hotel welcoming steamship passengers straight off the harbour.
A tuk tuk takes you into Pettah, whose trading streets still carry the merchant heritage of the old harbour of Kolamba: the red-and-white Jami Ul-Alfar Mosque, the Gothic Old Town Hall, once the seat of the Colombo Municipal Council, and Colombo Fort Railway Station, the British-built hub of the island's railway, with entry to both included. Along the way you pass Titus Stores, the market lanes and the Old Parliament building, and your guide adds a few hidden gems that are revealed only on the day. A second hop brings you to Gangaramaya, a working Buddhist temple and a short, clear introduction to Buddhism, before the walk ends on the seafront at the Galle Face Hotel and Galle Face Green, where the city comes to breathe.
In between come the stories the buildings don't tell: the Tap Bar and Geoffrey Bawa's Blue Leopard, Sri Lanka's first nightclub, at the Grand Oriental; George Steuart & Co., founded in 1835 and the first name on the country's company register, which led the switch from coffee to tea; and how the Suez Canal and Colombo's new breakwater, built from 1875 to 1884, moved the island's shipping, and merchant families such as the Macan Markar jewellers, from Galle to Colombo. At the king's cell and by the harbour your guide opens a window onto Kandy, Galle Fort and tea country, so that, taken early in your trip, the walk gives you the background that makes the rest of the island make sense. Ask anything, from the colonial past to independence and the Sri Lanka of today; the walk bends to your interests, whether they are railways, architecture, faith or food.
Your guide contacts you the day before and on the morning of the walk, and meets you at your Colombo hotel, at the Dutch Hospital or, for cruise passengers, at Port of Colombo Gate A-1. English-speaking guiding, drinking water, the tuk tuk rides between districts and the entry fees are included. The route and order may change with your interests, the day and the weather, and a tuk tuk stands by if it rains. Wear walking shoes and dress modestly for the temple and mosque visits; a hat and sun lotion help in the heat. The walk is not recommended for children under 12.
