Colombo & districts Hotels/Lodging

Oh though of little experience here in Colombo and the surrounding areas do please beware when chosing a hotel'guesthouse from the Tourist Office reccommended guide book! The place I have stayed at before, further South had been razed by the Tsunami sadly, so I took my chances and found a place on the Internet. Stayed for 2 nites and couldn't take any moe of them cheating me. Found another place in the Tourtist guide book, reccommended by the Tourist Office here and went along. All seemed ok, if a little seedy, but then I wasnt paying $50 a nite was I? After another 2 days I moved on again and spent a whole day almost going through the bok and visiting these "reccommended" places. Oh boy, don't let the book fool you and please be very careful if you book through the Internet as what you're reading isn't perhaps what you'll get. Many of the so called "comfortably furnished, food available, clean rooms, etc... places were just the opposite. 75% smelled like urinals and the sheets were dirty, and worse, many, MANY of them now have the "pay by day" facility where they rent out the room for illicit purposes (whadya mean you don't know what I mean?) and there looks to be a constant stream of people running in and out and the harrassment is something else.

I'm told that this has become more abundant since the tsunami as more people than before were made to live way below the poverty line.

I have the latest Tourist guide book here and could advise anyone who wants advice. So may of the hotels sounded exactly what I was looking for - then you arrive outside and wonder if there might just have been a mistake somewhere - THEN if you're brave enough, you peek inside.....Hmm.

Just be careful, especially lone female travellers (I have my steel walking stick that a lot of people are afraid of....tee heee) if you're tired or fed up you could be persuaded to stop over at one of these establishments and end up in a little trouble, or worse. Of course there are many hotels other than these, BUT it depends on what you're budget is - the ones I visited were between $15 - $25, and a couple less than that5, so we aren't talking about REAL cheapo accommodation at all -

Forewarned is forearmed

Happy Easter all!!