Sri Lanka It's Happening

April 13, 2006

Colombo has become a virtual ghost town thanks to the multitude of holidays that we have had this week. Officially Monday and Wednesday are not holidays. They are working days.

Many offices and shops in Colombo bowed to the invetable and granted additional holidays on these days as well. Keeping the offices open would have been more costly. That's because many of the staff would invariably take days off so that they have a 7 day break to celebrate the new year. Keeping offices running on skeletal staff would be costly affair particularly when many of the organiztions that you need to interact with are also on skeletal staff of completely closed.

The direct result of all this is that colombo is virtually deserted. There is almost no traffic on the streets. This is the quietest things have been since, new year last year. We made full use of this opportunity to drive across the city to Wellawatte beach yesterday - something that is almost unthinkable during a normal working day.

The beach doesn't get crowded in the morning, they come in only during the afternoon and evening, but today it was virtually deserted. The only places where you can find people seem to be at the supermarkets.

Posted by raditha at April 13, 2006 6:46 AM