Negombo

Negombo works for most visitors as the first or last night in Sri Lanka because it is minutes from the airport, but it is a substantial fishing town in its own right: the Lellama fish market runs on the beach in the early morning with the catch landed from outrigger oruwa catamarans, Dutch-built canals cut inland from the lagoon, and the town is strongly Catholic with churches every few streets and a Portuguese-derived name for the coast.

Background

Negombo, also called Punchi Romaya, Little Rome, and Mîpura, the city of bees, lies on the west coast at the mouth of the Negombo Lagoon, 38 km from Colombo by the Colombo-Katunayake Expressway and about 9 km from Bandaranaike International Airport. It is the largest city in Gampaha District and a major commercial centre, with about 142,136 people in its division. The town is known for long sandy beaches and a fishing industry centuries old, and its bilingual Sinhala and Tamil population has a large Christian majority.

Source: Wikipedia, "Negombo"

What's there

• The fish market - the morning landing and auction on the beach at Lellama.
• The oruwa catamarans - outrigger sailing craft still worked from the beach.
• The Dutch canal - the eighteenth-century waterway running inland from the lagoon.
• The lagoon - shallow water behind the town, worked for prawns and crab.

When to go

November to April is the drier window on this coast. The fish market runs before dawn and is over by mid-morning. The southwest monsoon brings rough sea from May.

Good to know

The beach is not the reason to come; it is narrow, eroded and lined with hotels and touts. The canal is polluted in stretches. The town is a convenient stopover more than a destination.

Nearby

Muthurajawela is south, and Colombo airport is close by.

Key facts