On our recent short cricket-focussed tour to Sri Lanka, we enjoyed a morning bus tour around Colombo city on our first full day. With the afternoon at leisure, we decided to walk along the coastal road from Taj Samudra towards where the “tent city” of peaceful protestors has established itself.

“Across the road from Colombo’s famous seaside park, Galle Face Green, a tent city filled with young people has been buzzing with activity for the past four months. It is the hub of Sri Lanka’s anti-government protest movement — a motley collection of colourful tents that has become home to a few hundred people.”

Probably a good idea not to walk amongst the protestors, so we heeded the travel advice to avoid large crowds and be aware of the protests currently happening in Colombo. According to some of our fellow travellers who arrived a day earlier (there’s another story – being delayed 24 hours in Sydney due to overbooking), there’s a shopping mall just before you get to the edge of the protestors.

Similar to the security at the entrance to our hotel accommodation, there is also a security screening point to enter the shopping mall – because it is near the protest area? No, it seemed more permanent – to allow only a certain element of customer into the somewhat luxurious shopping mall. One Galle Face is immediately recognizable as opulent, with its spacious layout and expensive brand name shops.

Clearly the people who can afford to shop here are barely impacted by the current economic woes of most of Sri Lanka’s population. No food or wage shortages in evidence here.

Looking for something for a late lunch, we quickly shied away from staying in the mall and buying the pricey food and drink in the restaurants and fast-food places. Vendors here clearly not in need of our investment.

So, we popped into the supermarket to purchase snacks for a “picnic” along the foreshore, Galle Face Green, the “famous seaside park” with its cannons and flagpoles. The folk out here more in need of financial support than those in the glitzy shopping mall.

While enjoying our beachside snack, there were some opportunities to support the locals – not technically beggars, but folks trying to make a living along the beach front. Would I like a Sri Lankan flag sticker, yes, that will be just right for the cover of my Sri Lanka journal, thank you. 100 rupees – about 40 cents. In retrospect, I probably should have bought a few more!

Other vendors included a lady selling hand-made craft toys – don’t really need them, even as souvenirs, so gave a donation. Another lady with a basket of fruit. A gentleman with a cobra in basket – gave some small change. A few donations here and there, and soon word gets around … so time to move away from the area before being inundated with folks looking for handouts.

The beachside was surprisingly quiet that day. The area further up with the protestors much busier. Looking back now, a few weeks later, we can imagine how the peaceful protestors would have swollen in numbers on July 8 and 9, and the crowd would have spilled further along Galle Face Green, before going around to storm the nearby President’s residence.  

Even so, I wonder if the luxury shops at One Galle Face have really felt any impact at all during this time of political and economic upheaval?