NEGOMBO

Negombo is a modest beach town located just closer to BIA. With beautiful golden sandy beaches, a stash of decent hotels to suit all pockets, a friendly local community. Negombo is a much easier place to find your Sri Lankan feet than Colombo. This city was first named as Negombo by Portugees. Not only that our ancient rulers have mentioned this place as “Group of Bees”.  This city has been dotted with old churches (most of the locals are catholic) Therefore this place is known as ‘Little Rome”. Well known occupation of this place is fishing as this place is closer to the lagoon. Each day, fishermen take their canoes and go out of the fish. The significance of this city was that Portuguese has empowered this area as their main port of hub for export and import goods. Foreign tourist can enjoy their stay at this city with that they can access often to the beach in front of big hotels or the place where locals were joined called Negombo Beach Park.

• Negombo Fish market

Negombo is a traditional fishing town of Sri Lanka and fishing as this place is closer to the lagoon. Each day, fishermen take their canoes and go out of the fish. The fishermen of the Negombo lagoon live in abject poverty in small, thatched palm houses in villages on the water’s edge. They rely on traditional knowledge of the seasons for their livelihood, using canoes carved out of tree trunks and nylon nets to bring in modest catches from September through till April. Their boats are made in two forms – oruvas (a type of sailing canoe) and paruvas (a large, man-powered catamaran fitted with kurlon dividers). The men are regularly forced to head out to the ocean to fish, often losing money in the chartering process. In recent years, the villagers have supplemented the income earned from fishing by collecting ‘toddy’, or palm sap, which is used to brew arrack.

• Negombo Shopping

There are also local handicraft sales on the beaches and the shops near the Negombo town. While the regular shopping items such as clothes, tea and knick-knacks are available you can also pick up some interesting jewelry in there. The handmade pieces are often charming and there is something for every budget. You can pick up stuff for as little as a couple of dollars and go up to a couple of hundred dollars. A good place to visit is Cartier Jewels located on Lewis Place or Beach Road.

• Lagoon

Negombo Lagoon is a large estuarine lagoon in Negombo, south-west Sri Lanka. The Lagoon is part of the much larger Muthurawajawela Marsh and Negombo Lagoon coastal wetland.   Lagoon crabs and lagoon prawns are in high taste and demand. The lagoon is fed by a number of small rivers and a canal. It is linked to the sea by a narrow channel to the north, near Negombo city. The lagoon has extensive mangrove swamps and attracts a wide variety of water birds including cormorants, herons, egrets, gulls, terns and other shorebirds. Negombo, Katunayake, Seeduwa are some nearby towns.Lagoon fishing is popular among the fishing community in negombo.

• Church ( St. Sebastian  church )

St. Sebastian’s Church is a Roman Catholic church in Negombo patterned on the Reims Cathedral in France, and is built in Gothic style.Saint Sebastian also known as the patron saint of the city of Negombo and shadow of this church is seen in the Negombo Lagoon. It may be so nice to see such a holy place do exist, a good way to really understand the local culture, at the St. Sebastian Church an annual festival dedicated to St. Sebastian is held on 20 January.

• Town Center

Negombo is a multi-religious city. Since the beginning of European colonization, the township of Negombo has had a majority of Roman Catholics along with Buddhists, Hindus and Muslims and the busy centre of Negombo town lies to the west of the bus and train stations. Most places to stay, however, line the main road that heads north from the town centre, with the beachside hotel strip starting about 2km north of town.

• Dutch Canal

Flowing through the heart of the city, Dutch Canal once acted as an important transportation and trading route. Commenced by the Portuguese but completed by the Dutch, it links the Kelani river north of Colombo and the Puttlam lagoon. Building of this is cited as a cause of salinity in the Muthurajawela and the subsequent decline of one once successful cultivation. Dutch canal is used by small boats for transport and it is also known in sections as the Negombo canal and the Puttlam canal.

• Browns Beach

Browns Beach is the best beautiful golden sandy beaches close to hotels and resorts on the west coast of Sri Lanka. Venturing into the water is not advisable, as the water was pretty rough – but this may not always be the case. Some of the beach are maintained by the tourist hotels, while others are always busy with fishermen and their equipment. Water surfing are popular among visitors.