Thursday 6th February 2014: GMT + 5.5hrs ­ Colombo, Sri Lanka: An Introduction

We arrived in Colombo in brilliant sunshine at shortly before 3.00pm.  We were berthed by a small passenger terminal behind the huge container port.

This was my first visit to Sri Lanka and a very enjoyable and contrasting visit to nearby India it proved to be too. My introduction to Colombo was to occur later this afternoon in a Tuk-Tuk followed by a visit to the Pinnawella Elephant Orphanage tomorrow – 7^th February.

So Sri Lanka, formerly a British Colony that gained independence a year after India in 1948 and known as Ceylon until 1972.  Sri Lanka is an island country off the SE coast of India – at its nearest point India it is only 22 miles distant – with a population of around 21 million.

The island was ruled by a native dynasty until the Portuguese arrived in the 16^th Century, followed by the Dutch and British who finally annexed Ceylon in 1815. It has been a Commonwealth state since 1948, and still is of course – the last Commonwealth Conference having been held recently in Colombo and attended by Prince Charles – and became the independent republic of Sri Lanka in 1972.

Colombo is a major port in the SW of Sri Lanka near the mouth of the Kelani River.  As the commercial capital of Sri Lanka, Colombo is the largest city in the country and owes its importance to the great breakwaters that shelter the large, artificially created harbour. Colombo handles most of the foreign trade of Sri Lanka as testified by the huge container port already mentioned and is also an important refuelling station.