Shopping and Geoffrey Bawa

The above is a picture of the Kandalama Hotel, Dambulla  from the website www.heritancehotels.com/kandalama/geoffrey-bawa.html

I went to find Geoffrey Bawa’s office today. He is a famous Asian architect that has built a number of prestigious hotels where the ‘external’ blends with the ‘internal’. His offices are now the Gallery café and it is quite beautiful. Otherwise Colombo is an architectural hell hole like most developing countries I have seen other than India that has some magnificent buildings. And endless oversize advertising hoardings that ruin the street scene. It makes you appreciate the importance of planning regulations.

After that I traipsed around hot, humid, Colombo for several hours trying to access a battery charger for my camera, because being a techy idiot I just picked up the camera didn’t I. I haven’t a clue where the charger is because J1 set it up for me initially. Of course they only have Asian models. In the end I got some all singing dancing Panasonic anything battery charger at a price from an obscure shop. Faultless service from everyone. They all make you sit down and have a glass of water while they ring round their contacts. Then they always open the packet and make sure it works properly. I sat in the shop while he charged the battery up and put it back in my camera before I paid for it. Impressive. It kills me going in and out of air con though.

 

The Urban Development Authority have produced a comprehensive 20 year Development Plan covering 2012-2030. Batticaloa has been selected as one of six UDAs in Sri Lanka receiving funding from the World Development Bank for Secondary Town development projects.

Batticaloa District Development Plan DRAFT 2013