Colombo by Tuk Tuk

Late Friday morning, our ship pulled into and docked at the port in Colombo, Sri Lanka. If you look at a map, Sri Lanka is a small country located just off the coast of southern India. Due to its shape and location, it is called the teardrop of India.

Our Friday afternoon excursion involved a trip around the capital city of Colombo by tuk tuk. A tuk tuk is a three-wheeled vehicle, also called an auto rickshaw, that is extremely convenient for getting around a crowded large city like Colombo. It is an affordable way for people here to have the essential transport that they need for everyday life. It is estimated that there are one million tuk tuks in Sri Lanka.

Colombo’s streets are filled with many vehicles: tuk tuks, motorcycles, buses, trucks, sedans, and a few SUVs. There are lines delineating lanes in the streets, but apparently staying in the lane while driving is entirely optional. As we drove along, we weaved in and out of traffic, sometimes pulling up alongside another tuk tuk where the drivers would chat with each other (in their local language). They would squeeze in between vehicles, or between the curb and a vehicle, and generally go where it would not be possible to go in a larger vehicle. The things we saw on this ride were all very interesting, but the most interesting thing of all was just the experience of riding in a tuk tuk.

We were in a group of about 50 or so people, and the bus dropped us off where the tuk tuks were all lined up waiting for us. 

Our tuk tuk

That meant that there were about 25 tuk tuks in our tour, and they all followed one another trying to stay together. There was some interesting maneuvering taking place to accomplish this, but that just added to the entertaining experience. Each of the tuk tuks in the group sported the Sri Lankan flag, I guess to denote that they were part of the tour group, and there were intersections where policemen stopped traffic to allow all of the tuk tuks in our group to get through. It was like a tuk tuk parade.

Our tuk tuk driver’s name was Tharanga. This vehicle is Tharanga’s personally-owned family “car”, and he has personalized it as such, with his name on the right side of the dashboard, and his wife’s name on the left. Most Catholics are familiar with the phenomenon of having a St. Christopher statue on the dashboard of a car (more so in the past than nowadays). Well, Tharanga had a similar idea, except instead of St. Christopher, he had a number of statues of various deities and or holy figures. There were some of the Hindu gods, as well as a statue of Buddha flanked by Jesus (Divine Mercy) on the left and Mary on the right. I guess Tharanga wanted to cover all his bases.

 

Tharanga

Tharanga was a very good guide, and he took great care of us. He pointed out things of interest, and whenever our group stopped and got out of the tuk tuks, he was always watching for us and waving at us so we could easily find our way back to him amidst all the tuk tuks in the tuk tuk parking lot.

 

Joe's new job in retirement?

Our ride started near the shore and so we drove by a park with a beach. 

We drove by some typical buildings such as City Hall, the Parliament building (whose architecture is modeled after the White House), a large convention center, other government buildings, and some temples.

 

One thing we noticed is that there is a very large police presence on the streets of Colombo. I remember watching the news one day shortly before we left for this trip, and seeing protests in Colombo. Apparently they were protesting the bad economy, and riots broke out on the streets during the protests. As a result, the police are still out in force. In fact, at one of our stops, there was some kind of ruckus going on, and when one of our group asked what happened, someone said the police were quelling a protest.

And then there’s this, in case the tourists get out of hand:

 

One of the buildings we passed by was a very large (block long), nice impressive looking government building. We eventually passed the sign which revealed what the building was: it was the Commission to Investigate Bribery or Corruption. Hmm, wonder where they got the money to build that nice palace, I mean place.

We also passed some gas stations where the lines for the pumps were very long. Tharanga pointed it out to us. I asked him if the long lines were typical, and he said yes.

I noticed a tuk tuk that had the word Uber written on the back, so if you called for an Uber in Colombo, I suppose you could have a tuk tuk show up. We were told that the highest speed that a tuk tuk can go is about 22 miles per hour, but Joe was pretty sure that we were often going much faster than that, especially when we were trying to catch up to the tuk tuk that we were following. Tharanga was obviously very experienced, and many times he was driving, rather fast, while looking to the right or to the left. We would be approaching a vehicle very fast and almost sure that we would run into said vehicle while Tharanga was not looking. Then he would look at the last minute and stop on a dime. Again, the whole experience was so unique and enjoyable.

Some typical street scenes:

We made two stops where we got out of the tuk tuks. The first was at a park. At the entrance of the park was a large statue of a Buddha sitting in the typical cross-legged pose. We were told this is the meditating Buddha. (Is there any other kind?) There was a sign nearby indicating that if you wanted to approach the statue, you needed to remove your shoes, and to get the message across, the sign was worded like this: “Avoid wearing shoes.”

We walked through the park and enjoyed a nice green space in the midst of the bustling city.

 

When we got to the other side of the park, the tuk tuks had driven there ahead of us, and we immediately spotted Tharanga waving us over. He was looking out for us.

The second stop was at a monument called Independence Hall. 

It was built shortly after Sri Lanka gained its independence from the British Empire. The country was named Ceylon when it was under British rule, and changed its name to Sri Lanka when it became independent. The name Sri Lanka means resplendent island. We found the name to be fitting. After our tuk tuk tour, we did indeed find this to truly be a resplendent island.