Fort, Colombo

Fort, Colombo, Sri Lanka (3 September, 2005)


Fort is a district in downtown Colombo. It should be written Fort, not the Fort. And what's more, you cannot find a fort here. The old fortifications which were erected by the Dutch (who built on the original fortifications left by the Portuguese) were demolished by the British (the same way they demolished the Malacca Fort, I suppose).

When I visited Colombo with a small group of AsiaExplorers members, I had the opportunity to explore Fort. However, there were many places which were out-of-bounds to photography, hence there isn't much that I can show you about this area. I was quite surprise by the sensitivity to tourists taking photographs. Even at the hotel where we stayed, the Galadari Hotel, we could only aim our cameras at the hotel, and not at any other direction. That because the Galadari faces the Presidential Secretariat Building, which is off-limits to photography.

YMBA Building, another view (3 September, 2005)


Some of the most significant buildings in Colombo are in Fort, and hence, I was unable to photograph them. A major landmark was the Lighthouse Clock Tower. While not particularly striking in design, this clock tower at Lower Chatham Street stands in a neighbourhood that has suffered bomb blasts.

Speaking of bomb blasts, Fort district is particularly prone to it. And, to my astonishment, Galadari Hotel as well as the nearby Hotel Inter Continental have been bombed before. I have been to places where security was also tight, like Kashmir, but what we have at Fort takes it to ridiculous proportions.

There are many beautiful buildings in Fort. One of the most prominent one, which I am allowed to photograph, is the YMBA Building, also called Sir Cyril de Zoysa Building, belonging to the Young Men Buddhist Association.

Fort, downtown Colombo (3 September, 2005)


Heritage building along Sir Baron D.B. Jayatilaka Mawatha in Fort, Colombo (3 September, 2005)

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Hello and thanks for reading this page. My name is Timothy and my hobby is in describing places so that I can share the information with the general public. My website has become the go to site for a lot of people including students, teachers, journalists, etc. whenever they seek information on places, particularly those in Malaysia and Singapore. I have been doing this since 5 January 2003, for over twenty years already. You can read about me at Discover Timothy. By now I have compiled information on thousands of places, mostly in Peninsular Malaysia and Singapore, and I continue to add more almost every day. My goal is to describe every street in every town in Malaysia and Singapore.