Colombo in the 1930s

[brigittebod]

I have two British gentlemen who find themselves with time to kill in Colombo in the early-to-mid 1930s. One of them has been to Sri Lanka* before, the other hasn't. Gentleman A decides to show Gentleman B "the sights". What are "the sights

Comments

[occasionalhope]

Do these links help at all?

https://vernoncorea.wordpress.com/2010/11/07/old-films-of-ceylon-from-the-1920s-and-1930s/

http://www.sundaytimes.lk/160131/plus/come-with-me-to-1930s-colombo-180910.html

[essayofthoughts]

This isn't from me, this is from my mother who researched our family in South Asia prior to WW2. She also recommends old photographs and says that by the 1940s visiting Buddhist temples in Burma - and thus likely elsewhere - was a relatively occurrence. She can also give advice you want your gents to go to Kandy. Other than that she says the following:

I'm not sure about the sights, but they might go the Galle Face Hotel for a drink (and a wander on Galle Face Green, next to the sea, afterwards).

There were (still are, I think) a lot of shops in the Fort area - if you look online you might find some photos to help with the creativity.

Beyond that, there must have been a temple or church worth a look - religion is still big in Sri Lanka, and given that temples, elephants etc. feature on old postcards I'm sure people would have gone to have a look.

For extra local colour, they could watch a delivery by bullock cart - these are used in out of the way places and would have been commonplace then.

[movingfinger]

Baedeker. The 1914 German guide to India has been recently translated and published in English, if you can't get the German guide/have no German. That should more than answer your questions!

Yes, it's the 1914 guide, but apart from any railway expansion (I don't know that happened, but it's the sort of thing that could happen), classic tourist sites are fairly conservative. Cross-checking with modern guides for mentions of obvious things built in the '30s and historical events should give you a very good grounding.

[orange_fell]

A google search for "Ceylon 1930s" brings up useful results, such as this TravelTalk film clearly aimed at tourists: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=RA1tTNUcPPs

I also found that cricket enthusiasts on Wikipedia have created a bunch of entries under the category of 1930s Ceylon. It seems that every so often when England's team was on its way to Australia or India, or Australia's team was on its way to England, they would make a stopover in Colombo and have a one-day match with Ceylon's team, which "at that time did not have Test status," which I guess means it wasn't a part of the official British Empire cricket league (can you tell I know nothing about cricket?). Anyway, if your characters are there on the right day, month, and year, they could catch one of these special national matches; or if not, they could probably see cricket played at the regional or local level.