Sri Lanka - Negombo / Colombo

I would like to start this post by firstly apologising for what is probably one of my worst blog posts to date, with some pretty shoddy photos, but if we get this out of the way, then its all uphill from there about my great trip to Sri Lanka with Boet.
Boet and I had been trying to plan a holiday somewhere inbetween UK and OZ, and so had decided on either Vietnam or Sri Lanka. It almost looked like it was not going to happen, due to timing and plans getting too confusing, but hooray, we managed to pull it together eventually!
Being the big cricket fans we are, we decided of course to go to Sri Lanka.

Apparently there is not that much worth doing or seeing in Colombo, so we decided to stay for a night on either side of the holiday in Negombo, as its closer to the airport than Colomba, and has an OK beach. Boet started with 2 nights here, and I ended with 2.

There is not too much one can say about Negombo. It has a street with some fairly nice restaurants, (we did thoroughly enjoy the grilled tuna, and boy, those Mojitos were strong!), and a windswept beach which sadly is pretty dirty with various types of rubbish being washed up, and a slightly oily blackness to it in parts.
We stayed in a little hotel on the beach, which was pleasant but was slightly run down. Negombo felt a little bit like purgatory to me - a place where people go while waiting to go somewhere else, with lost souls wandering aimlessly, hoping for better things.

Negombo is also a good place to prepare you mentally for the constant cries of "Tuk-Tuk" one is going to hear on any trip to Sri Lanka  - there are so many tuk-tuks everywhere, I am not sure how they all get enough business.
As the scenery was not too spectacular, I did not feel overly inspired to take photos, so here are some of the few I took.

 View from our hotel balcony

 Leading onto the beach from the hotel

Halfway through our trip we had to return to Colombo for 1 night, as poor old Boet had left his card in the ATM at the airport on arriving, and we could not get the card back as it was the weekend. So we returned mid-week to get his card, and there was much celebrations all round!

Colombo itself was not that spectacular as we had been warned, although their houses of parliament are nice. Below we see the view from our hotel room - could almost be Sea Point!

We stayed in a pretty nice hotel in Colombo, to get away from the bustle of the city, and really enjoyed the rooftop pool. It looked spectacular at night all lit up, but alas, I only have a photo during the day.