Heavy Pettah
I went to Pettah over the weekend, looking for this particular Motorola. It was a cool day, laden with yesterdays rain. First I drove through Pettah looking for a theoretical parking spot and finding none. The streets are occupied with people, flowing around the slow moving car like ambivalent waves. No parking no parking no parking. I had originally parked next to a fetid garbage dump/housing project but decided it was too far. In my meanderings that’s exactly where I ended up, and where I parked again. Hop a three into Pettah. I remember seeing cool stuff in Pettah when I was a kid, but as far as I can tell Pettah is full of junk. No offense. Seriously though, it’s a bunch of too-tall socks, cheap cloth, knives, and electronics from 1983. It feels like Blade Runner except without any cool stuff. Maybe I’m wrong. I walk past a big kovil and get some peara (guava) in a bag. They put some chili on it, which I’m not used to. It’s pretty freaking good.
A Pettah Kovil. Much taller and cooler
Pettah is, above all, different. As boring as Colombo is compared to the rest of Sri Lanka, there are still some interesting spots. Fort was cool before security concerns shut it down, and Wellawatta is interesting as a South Asian city with cramped high-rises and dosai joints. There are some tree lined roads near Thumulla where you feel almost free. Pettah is more entertaining for the mess and crowds – the bazaar. My problem is that most of the stuff at the bazaar is just crap. Worse than crap, it’s the same crap. My main gripe with shopping in SL is that every store sells the same stuff. You find the same overpriced electronics at every store in MC and Unity, and in Pettah it’s the same thing. Except the electronics are from 1983. There’s also the same cloth, same patterns, same same.
The achcharu is good though.
duh, been there. too crowded if yeh ask me. needs some serious policing. wonder whether we’d ever have decent/disciplined cities like Melb or NY.
Pettah would be good if they clean the place up, and chase off the gangsters and the like. Anyways i don’t think we’d ever be able to expect better public places from sucking governments SL has ever been having.
Or sometimes it’s just the way people here are..
on the contrary i like the chaos, it adds character to a place. There is a larger car park called Charmers at the start of main street, so just park it there and take the tour. I find the place interesting, the trading that takes place there and the cash that flows is just crazy..
“Drunk at work” is quite right. Ye olde Charmers warehouse area has plenty of space but by a weekday afternoon, you got to drive into its nooks and crannies.
Its paid parking of course.
The place can be a bit tricky to find – the entrance is just a gap in the shops – the Wikimapia pic shows what I mean.
Pettah is more like the old bazaar cities of the middle east than anything western. Sort of like a merchant camp set up outside a Portuguese fort…
I really like Pettah. The chaos is great. It’s one thing I’m not mad at the government for.
okay, then atleast they should clean the place up a bit.
Me too. I find Australian cities and suburbs pretty sterile. Maybe its misplaced nostalgia.
Indi, is that Kovil the picture the one on 1st cross street?
You are dead on about the sameness of the stuff on sale. Maliban street has quite a few cheapo printing places (many specialising in wedding related stuff). Their paper stocks are garish and practically identical. Even the sample books are the same. Yet the prices fluctuate and all quotes are verbal.Felt like that their margins were tight and the whole street was relying on a few suppliers.
Despite that the place is very bazaar in every sense of the word – vibrant and very human. Seem every oldish city in the exotic east has an area like that. Essentially like a souk. There’s a similar look about them even if its in Cairo or old KL (Pettah does look/feel a bit more like the older parts of KL ).
I think that’s the one. Thanks for the map, I can sorta orient where stuff in Pettah is now
I hate crowds so I naturally detest Pettah.
There was a nice joke making its rounds a few years back.
“Guess who I bumped into at Pettah the other day…”
“Who?”
“Every one”
Sounds like fun.
Indi,
Are you mad to take phtographs in Pettah?
I am surprised thet they did not arrest you or a sent a white van for you.
Do you know a Tamil in Dehiwala was arrested for having a model of an air craft? (the type air lines give as compliments)
I really dont think the white van comes after you for taking photographs of pettah! You cant take photos on the reclamation road side cause it faces the harbour. But main street, First cross street, keyzer street etc., you can.
There’s no city in the world as colourful as Colombo. And none with nearly as much character…but then that’s porbably just the nostalgia talking…
Ever taken a bus out of Fort in the wee hours? The streets are hopping through the night, everyone strolling and selling. Vibrant or sordid, depending on your mood.
You can buy anything — mi madre noted some Air Lanka spoons at a shop there some years back — but I do share Indi’s complaint that there’s a limited selection of cheap crap. I blame it on the garment-industry model, where external buyers direct what gets manufactured out of local goods and labor, and those who made it can’t afford to buy it, just Chinese plastic dishes or plastic tools or plastic clothes.
Indi, OT: are the two checkboxes above and below the comments text box different or redundant? (“Subscribe to comments via email” and “Notify me of followup comments via email”)
It’s amusing to read this naiive write-up from someone who knows not where to go in Pettah (or in other parts of ‘boring’ Colombo for that matter), and how to get things done.
[...] Colombo December “’tis the season to be jolly” December 21, 2007 — cerno On the commute home yesterday evening spousal unit announced 5-8 social commitments that have ensnared us. Not that I’m complaining but it pretty obvious its that time of the year. Plane loads of Sri Lankans are descending from all over the world. No doubt to clog Odel like Maliban street in Pettah. [...]