The colourful food market in Pettah, Colombo / Sri Lanka. 15.7.2018

The colourful food market in Pettah, Colombo / Sri Lanka. 15.7.2018

I’ve been to loads of street food markets while traveling. I’ve always liked them since I’ve always felt that part of a city’s heart beats there. I’ve always shot photos of foods in those street markets and always been intrigued by the colours and shapes of exotic fruit and vegetables…but never, never before have I seen so much colour bursting out of the baskets, skeps, and even the walls surrounding this semi open-air food market! It is a cloudy morning in Colombo, Sri Lanka. There’s a beautiful breeze coming from the shore and I was lucky enough to start the day in the hustle and bustle of the Pettah food market (area: COLOMBO 11). I’m afraid my photos will not suffice to transfer the real colours and energy of this market, and neither can they transfer you to what it feels like to spend the day among those warm, humble and welcoming people.

Colombo is, not surprisingly at all, an extremely charming city. To be honest with you it is probably the most welcoming, cozy and interesting Asian city I have traveled to so far (given that, to me Asian countries are exceptionally welcoming and cozy and of course interesting anyway). Beautiful parks, mysticism, interesting sights, positive vibes! Even if the city might not perfectly work in order, the citizens themselves do so, proving in this way how important it is for a people to boast education and ethos!

Imperialism has always been and still remains a nasty thing-no doubt-but nobody can deny the charm that the colonial past has sealed certain places in the world with. Colombo is one of those examples: British architecture, dagobas ( Buddhist stupas), and Dutch cathedrals, this magnificent exotic flora (you see banyan trees everywhere) and the Buddha statues ubiquitous in every street and backyard, all blend together in a beautiful melting pot. I think that if Colombo were a colour, it would be green. I keep having the author Michael Ondaatje in my mind for no particular reason (it’s probably the Cat’s Table).

I can’t wait to go up North. I am a teacher, and this little article is dedicated to a most favourite student of mine. His name is Fyron and he’s a teenager from Sri Lanka-born and raised in Athens. This article goes out to him and his wonderful family: the people who have been teaching me for the last three years what appreciation and honest kindness means, what it means to smile ..with a smile that comes directly from the heart..!

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