(The view from the Grand Oriental Hotel. Pic cred: The author.)

The DP2 Geography class hit the roads of Colombo!

(Note: this post is more of a reflection of an activity outside of general CAS, rather than a conventional CAS post)

This Monday, the Geography class took a trip around Colombo to observe the different zones (such as the Central Business District) and their land uses. This trip links to the Urbanisation unit that we have been looking at in class, and when looking at the different sites we took note of how certain geographical concepts were exemplified in Colombo.

We started off by visiting the Floating Market in Pettah, where I learned of the impact of COVID and the economic crisis on making the floating market quite barren. From this old commercial district we walked along the roads taking note of the different shops etc.

(At the Pettah Floating Markets. Pic cred: The author.)

Eventually, we came across the train station, built during British colonization, and an opportunity for redevelopment. I have to say, despite some of the pollution we saw – the train station was quite photogenic. We even hopped onto an old train being exhibited (likely as a souvenir of the past) and saw somewhat creepy mannequins in it.

At the heart of the city there was a large statue of Henry Olcott, an American that played a key role in reviving Buddhism in Sri Lanka. It was quite surprising to learn about him and his historical significance, as Olcott isn’t someone the Sri Lankan textbooks discuss in-depth.

(At the train station. Pic cred: The author.)

From then on we walked to the markets, I haven’t really visited these places much and was quite surprised at the pure congestion of people and products. It was quite a walk through this area, and we came across the first town hall in Colombo.

We toured inside, and the Dutch and British architecture made this building extremely gorgeous. There was also a room with life-like figurines of the historical figures that wrote Sri Lanka’s constitution, mildly creepy but very cool. Fun fact: there was also a man with the last name “Shakespear”.

(The view from inside the town hall. Pic cred: The author.)

Afterward, we walked further into Colombo – and it was quite interesting to observe the spoken language change from Sinhala to Tamil. There we visited a Hindu kovil, and Mr. Lockwood taught us about the different gods and goddesses. It was very fascinating to also note the way a majority of the shops on that street were jewellery shops.

After lunch at a South Indian restaurant (which was absolutely exquisite) we walked to the Grand Oriental Hotel. During this walk, we saw quite a lot of informal businesses, more so than when we first started in Pettah I’d say. The view from this hotel’s balcony was AMAZING and we could see Colombo’s wonderful landscape from high up. There was an immense amount of construction going on, and the harbour was very busy.

Then, we walked from here to the Dutch Hospital – the streets when walking were less busy, and the old foreign architecture reminded me a lot of Kandy. Once we reached the Dutch Hospital, our excursion was over – according to Mr. Lockwood’s Strava we had walked about 8.3km!

We ended the trip a bit tired, but content. It’s always a completely different experience to walk across Colombo rather than riding in a car, and I think that this trip really put Colombo more into perspective as a city.

Learning outcomes:

• LO1 – Strength and growth
  • I definitely think that this trip was useful in helping me remember certain geography concepts, in that way I saw growth in how I understood it.
  • More related to Action – I believe all the walking was definitely a good way to burn off the calories from the dose!

• LO6 – Global engagement 
  • Due to the fact that urban trends can be observed in many cities, we were able to apply a lot of the concepts from our textbook to Colombo. We were able to look at some developments that Colombo was undertaking as well as the areas that could be improved – such as the redevelopment and tourism encouragement of certain sites.
  • Additionally, it was inevitable that we would observe certain urban stresses – such as air pollution and littering. This gave way for further thinking upon the topic of Urbanisation.