A Snapshot of Sri Lanka

In this post, I will be providing images of Sri Lanka, focusing on Colombo, Kandy, Upcountry and some other places in Sri Lanka. I’ll give some text describing each photo or a group of photos. These photos were taken recently in May 2017 when I was in Sri Lanka. I’m trying to capture the diversity and beauty of Sri Lanka giving pictures in both built-up and natural areas that showcase buildings, trees, scenery, bridges, vehicles, houses, rivers, lakes, falls, seas, railways, mountains and rocks. The pictures will be given in the order that they were taken. Let’s begin with images of Colombo.

Here’s a seaside road in Wellawatte at night.

A view of Galle Road from a taxi heading towards Kollupitiya.

Here’s a view of Marine Drive from a taxi heading towards Colombo Fort.

A Colombo road with trees and modern buildings.

Views of Marine Drive, Wellawatte with the sea and railway.

We’ll now move on to images taken outside of Colombo. Here’s a bridge near Avissawella overlooking a river.

A view of the Castlereigh Reservoir.

Mountains, Trees, Grasslands and Waterfalls.

A mountain in Nuwara Eliya.

A Sri Lankan shaped Pond in Hakgala Botanical Gardens, Nuwara Eliya.

Inside Hakgala Botanical Gardens.

A view of the Kandy Lake taken from a boat.

Hillside houses in Kandy.

A view of the Kandy Lake and its surroundings.

Mahaweli River in Kandy.

A road by a bridge in Kandy.

Views from the Hotel Topaz in Kandy.

Palm Trees seen on the Kandy to Colombo train ride.

A Rock also seen on the Kandy to Colombo train ride.

We’ll now be returning to Colombo. Here are some of the many apartment buildings in Wellawatte.

A view of skyscrapers in Colombo Fort taken near Galle Face.

Buildings by the Beira Lake.

A view of a street in Colombo Fort.

Galle Face Green with the Sri Lankan Flag flying.

Crescat Boulevard (A shopping complex).

I hope you enjoyed these pictures of Sri Lanka. Feel free to give your thoughts on my selection or if you have any questions about any of the places I selected.  

Showcasing Sri Lanka from Google Street View

In March this year, Google released coverage of Sri Lanka in their Google Street View service. I’m so glad that it finally arrived as I’ve been wanting there to be Google Street View coverage of Sri Lanka ever since I first heard of the service. I heard that the images of Sri Lankan roads were recorded from December 2014 to March 2016, with those in Colombo being mainly recorded in November and December 2015. I’ll be embedding the areas from Google Street View that I refer to which the user can explore in this blog as well as make it full screen with the icon on the right hand side or open it in a new window in a larger size via the “View on Google Maps” button and explore the roads from that point. If any of the embedded areas do not load, you’ll be able to see them through the “View on Google Maps” button. As I’m from Colombo, it is the region given the most coverage, but I’ll be featuring many areas all over Sri Lanka. I will give some thoughts on Sri Lanka as seen here and making some comparisons to when I was last in Sri Lanka, which was in January 2014.

A good thing I’ve noticed is that Sri Lanka looks cleaner, especially Galle Road. When I was last there it was difficult to walk across Galle Road due to the road rebuilding that was taking place. The road rebuilding that was taking place appears to be complete and the centre of parts of the road has plants which makes it look nicer as well as reducing the number of people crossing the road. With regard to people crossing the road, I see on Galle Road as well as other areas in Sri Lanka, yellow crossings have been built. Going back to the earlier plant issue, that would reduce the number of people crossing the road, which would speed up traffic. Here’s Galle Road in the Colombo suburb I’m from (Wellawatte).

The roundabout near Liberty Plaza looks updated as I don’t remember seeing it like that and this part of the road looks so clean. I like it how the roundabout has fountains.

It’s good to see that construction is continuing just like when I was last in Sri Lanka.

 

This new building that I haven’t yet seen in Sri Lanka looks good.

Here’s an image of the centre of Colombo. The pavement looks nice and clean and I don’t think that the ledge was there when I was last in Sri Lanka.

I’m now going to be focussing on areas outside Colombo. I’ll give a sentence describing it with the place being below it.

Here are some of the roads in Galle.

Here’s Kandy by the lake.

This is Kalladi Bridge in Batticaloa.

Here’s Point Pedro by the sea.

This is near Wasgamuwa National Park.

The first two are from Mullaitivu and the following three and from Mannar Island. I’m grouping them together as I think they look similar to California.

This is in the Sabaragamuwa Province near the Sinharaja Rainforest.

This is in the Southern Province not too far from the previous image.

A Sri Lankan mountain by the Victoria Randenigala Rantembe Sanctuary.

On the Thanamalvila Road with the first scene being by the Uda Walawe Reservoir.

Here’s a road on the Uva Province.

The next scene is in Ja-Ela with the following two being near Ja-Ela.

A road in Negombo.

As seen in the above Negombo image, that is another of those Yellow crossings. It looks as if these Yellow crossings have been appearing all over Sri Lanka in the last few years. Regarding the cleaner appearance, it’s possible that Google captured many images from the same location and chose the best ones. I wonder if in some places, they edited the image to make it look cleaner. Irrespective of the differences in this and the real thing, Sri Lanka being cleaner is a good sign. There are still a small number of roads in Sri Lanka not covered in Google Street View and I hope that all of Sri Lankan roads will get covered before the end of the decade. This is one of the amazing features of modern technology, allowing those outside Sri Lanka to see what Sri Lankan roads are like. I hope you’ve enjoyed what I shared of Sri Lanka. Feel free to comment giving your thoughts.