Pettah

Shopping W E Bastian Mawatha Colombo Sri Lanka Published on: 13-11-2015

Rating
Opening hours	10:00 AM - 05:00 PM
Category	Shopping Apparel & Accessories Food & Spirits Markets Bag Shoes
Price range	1.00 USD

Pettah is good for

Family with kids Good

Senior Good

Couple Good

Solo Good

Group Good

Pettah is Colombo's biggest, most functional market space. It is loud, crowded and infinitely full of interesting and useful things.

by McKay Savage

by Jérôme Decq

Image copyrights belong to authors

Why Pettah is special ?

At first glance, the place seems chaotic and bordering on mad, what with the streets being packed inch to inch by trishaws, hawkers and wooden wagons. But if you know Pettah and know what to get where, you can walk away with some very cool stuff at ridiculous prices. Also with the right attitude you can make friends with some very interesting people here.

Source: http://www.yamu.lk/

What to explore at Pettah?

Shops in the Pettah are still arranged in the traditional bazaar layout, with each street devoted to a different trade: Front Street, for example, is full of bags, suitcases and shoes; 1st Cross Street is devoted to hardware and electrical goods; 3rd Cross Street and Keyzer Street are stuffed with colourful fabrics, and so on. The wares on display are fairly mundane – unless you’re a big fan of Taiwanese household appliances or fake Barbie dolls – although traces of older and more colourful trades survive in places.

Source: http://www.roughguides.com/

How to get to Pettah?

Taxis

There are 'TATA Nano' cars in service nowadays and the charges start from LKR40/km with air-conditioning and it is also a safe and convenient way to travel. Taxis are much safer than a three-wheeler.

Try Budget Taxi ☎ +94 11 729-9299. Quote of LKR2,800 (March 2015) from Galle Road to the airport.

Source: http://wikitravel.org/

Selling points

Busy streets with lot of shops and vendors
Bustling street life
Nice local market
Bustling markets with lots of people
A different flavour

Location

Address

W E Bastian Mawatha Colombo Sri Lanka

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Tips for you

You can get anything you want for half of the price in stores.

Prices
You can jump in to the local Faluda shops for milk shake (Sri Lanka Style), Fresh fruit juices, Indian style sweets.

Things to do
Olcott road and Prince Street lie in parallel to each other and connect with Central Bus Stand and Railway station on both ends respectively.

What to know
If you do have to get to Pettah by car, you can go around the Khan Clocktower and park near there.

Parking

Reviews

TripAdvisor View more

When visiting a new country, we always like to visit markets to get a feel for the place. So this was our first stop in Sri Lanka. You can't really really buy much there as most places are wholesale shops. But it is the people watching that is interesting. We walked most of it and some places have retail shop although there is nothing there that I would buy except for the 2 electrical adaptors which we needed (100 rupees each). In terms of market, we have seen many much better in the world but it is still interesting to help you see life in Sri Lanka.

FourSquare View more

As crazy as it gets in a market. A truly bustling, colouful and chaotic market. Clothes, shoes, bags and even electronics available. Its super cheap, so in terms of quality, you get what u pay for!