Colombo is a sight to behold and once the discerning traveller has traversed the nooks and corners of the city through the “Colombo City Guide” you will know it better. Sri Lanka’s capital has gone unnoticed in the past and this has been the reason that most travelers do not find hidden treasures in the name of colonial architecture and a perfect location to find the history of the country in the immediate pre-independence era.
 |
| Juliet Coombe at the launch. Pic by
M. A Pushpakumara |
Tourists overlooked Colombo either because it was not safe or because they did not think there was anything interesting about it, The Colombo Guide co-author Juliet Coombe believes.
She notes the reason for the book being that a city should have a guide and through this “I thought I would make Colombo exciting.”
Co-author of the book - Lasantha David says, “Colombo is worth the journey; every street, every person, every story.”
The two had worked for a period of six months on the project getting things from people’s perspective. Ascertaining how history of Colombo evolved and the way people are reinventing history.
Taking journalists this week on a tour of the city to indicate some of the interesting feats the city has to offer to any visitor, aboard the Colombo City Tour double-decker by Ebert Silva Tours, clearly highlighted the sights and sounds of a city lost to the hustle and bustle of economic activity.
The “Colombo Guide” is not just your average directory of numbers and collage of photographs, labeled a guide. Comprising a team with both local flavour and international experts, young, old, single, married, unfaithful, the guide takes you through the smallest of streets, into the hearts of the people who colour Colombo with their lives.
The team of writers of the “Colombo Guide” strolled into the very essence of the city from the bustling Pettah to Slave Island to Mount Lavinia. The guide also relates the lives of people in the city like the story of Kuttan, the doorman at the Galle Face Hotel and that of Ramesh Ranasinghe and Kamaya de Soysa who run the Quintessence of Spun Sugar, the cupcake people.
Discovering new places of interest like the coffee shop at Ward Place, Coco Veranda and also other little known shops lining the streets along Colombo so the reader will be able to go out and enjoy the real life that is in the city.
Forgotten treasures like the Colombo Lighthouse is brought to the fore, the boutique hotel Casa Colombo hidden away from all other commercialized hotels that are a staple in most guidebooks, set in a 200-year-old mansion.
Young couples get the chance of finding the best places to hang out after researching with people from various generations and social classes. Another important facet are the art trails in Colombo from the Theertha Art Gallery to the mini gallery at Odel and the artists on Green Path.
The book gears people up for what will be Sri Lanka’s biggest art event, the 2012 Colombo Art Biennale, for which Sri Serendipity Publishing will be doing the official book on the Biennale and all the artists involved in it.
This guidebook will be distributed in over 40 countries around the world. |
E-mail
