Our overall impression of Sri Lanka is as quite poor.

This is borne out by the following income statistics:

• Average Monthly Salary: Generally ranges between LKR 48,000 (15 USD) for labor roles to over LKR 334,000 (1000 USD) for top-level executives.
• Household Income: As of late 2019 data, the average monthly household income was LKR 20,527 (65 USD) per person.
• Living Wage: Estimated at approximately LKR 84,231 (267 USD) monthly for urban areas as of late 2025.

So many of the colonial buildings in Colombo are in terrible disrepair. Our guide spoke about this building collapsing and now being rebuilt, and that building collapsing, etc.

Plus he told us about how a new sixty story building had to be completely torn down and rebuilt due to poor workmanship.

Our guide pointed out the most posh apartment building in town and emphasised how expensive it was to buy in the building, with the smallest apartment running LKR 5 million (16,000 USD). While completely outside of the means of the local people the price none-the-less this was surprising when comparing to international standards of what looked like a high-end development.

Another interesting observation was that the Chinese recently built a couple of key buildings without a quid pro quo..... or at least not an immediate one.

Fortunately the city was celebrating the end of the new year holiday so was empty, meaning we had no traffic to contend with during our panoramic tour. In reality, there wasn't a lot to see of real interest. (There are normally a lot of tuk-tuks plying the streets of the city. The joke is to make sure you have your will up-to-date before you dare to take a spin in these vehicles. But today all was quiet).

We are glad we visited but overall we found Colombo to feel a bit sad.