Went to Galle Face in Colombo, Sri Lanka. The skyline looks much more impressive than I last saw it but the beach could have been kept cleaner. My suggestion would be to have bins for people to throw garbage into and some police officer patrolling and giving small Rs.20 to Rs.50 fines to people who litter, oh and most importantly hire more staff to pick the garbage as well (this is actually more important than the fines - because seeing a clean place will discourage further littering). Galle Face is a centrepiece in how the country is viewed so I don't think it would be a bad place to start a clean image for the country.

Beyond that I do really want to visit the One Gale Face Mall. I am glad that at least part of the skyline is not occupied by yet another hotel which is too expensive to visit. A mall is much better because it is open to everyone, unlike a hotel where you need to book a room to go inside. The old world trade centre and central bank buildings (not pictured here) look rather pathetic now compared to the new buildings, whereas they used to look splendid to me when they were the most prominent, but they still look nice from another angle when viewed as the backdrop for the Old Parliament Building.

Driving in Colombo was not as awful as I expected though there could be improvements there too. The main problem is that people are allowed to park on the slow lane. Maybe this is a consequence of the lack of proper multi-storey car parks as well as on street car parking but I lost count of the number of times I had to change lanes because someone had parked their car on the road. I am aware that making car parking available will be no easy task but I believe it's the only way for a car-centric city to provide fast and safe traffic flow by avoiding drivers from having to make unnecessary lane changes.

One comment which someone I was with made was how few of the lights in the hotels were on... and quite frankly I don't understand what the appeal of staying in one of these hotels is, if indeed all these buildings are hotels. The view from the buildings is probably alright but the buildings are nicer to look at from the outside anyway. #HFL