6 Hours in Colombo, Sri Lanka

I was on a flight from Bahrain to Singapore with a 6-hour layover in Colombo, Sri Lanka. You see, I’m not the kind of person who would just sit in the airport for 6 hours. While 6 hours may be a short amount of time, I took the chance to quickly visit some popular areas in Colombo, Sri Lanka. I quickly hired a personal taxi at the exit of the airport (I took any price they offered), and I was on my way.

Just a tip – if you ever have a short layover in Colombo, don’t take the risk to go to Colombo, go to Negombo Beach instead! You’ll have a much more relaxing time there as compared to me rushing through different spots in Colombo.

My Sri Lankan friends told me how bad the traffic was in Colombo… and they were right. There was a huge jam close to the city and I was anxious if I was going to be able to make it back to the airport on time. However, the taxi driver assured me that all was okay.

Gangaramaya Temple

My first stop was Gangaramaya Temple, a Buddhist temple located in the heart of the city. It was a really beautiful temple and quiet temple, with some worshipping activities going on as I was there. I took some time to walk around the main temple building, and I also visited the secondary part of the temple that floated above the lake.

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Pettah Market

My next (and final) stop was the surroundings of Pettah Market. There were already a few places that I could drop by there. Petath Market was next to Fort Train Station, which was the Central train station in Colombo. It was really busy – it seemed that everyone was on their way to work. I spent a while walking around the area and trying out some of the food they were selling as the market as well. By the way, everything was super spicy.