Colombo, Sri Lanka

We made landfall after two very calm days at sea. The Legend of the Seas is "parked" at the far end of the container port next to a rust bucket, Bulk Arrow, that does not look seaworthy! It's a hot and humid day with a buttermilk sky. It's difficult to see a clear blue sky in the tropics. From my vantage point on deck 11 onboard I see 7 cranes on the starboard side, in the port alone. I don't see any cranes in the city skyline. As I turn around I see maybe 50 "container" cranes ready to move cargo from ship to shore and vice verse. It's Wednesday so this place should be a beehive of activity at 230 PM but I don't see anything moving. Maybe it's "siesta time." It is quite hot outside.

This morning we took a shorex to look at the city. Colombo, (no longer the capital) is a bustling city if 2.5 million souls. We went to the Pettah, which is the traditional outdoor market, and saw lots of activity. Small 3-wheeled cars were weaving in and out of traffic made up of motorcycles, hand carts, tour buses, regular buses, larger cars, lorries, pedestrians, and everything in between. It was a riot of color and energy -- of folks taking care of business.

As an aside, as I looked at my pictures, I noticed there were few women shopping. I also noticed that folks wore a mix if western dress, native dress, Moslem dress, and (what looked to me as) Pakestani dress.

The architecture is a mixture of the British colonial, traditional, and modern. Everything looks tired, but in the tropics, everything always looks tired. This climate is not good for works made by man. Rust and mold are rampant. Given that, I did not see the tangle of electric wire that is common in too many places such as Thailand, VietNam or Macao.