New Hindu temple on Sea Street
The New Kathiresan Temple is a recently-built Hindu temple on Sea Street, a well-known street in the port-side Hindu district of Colombo. It was built as something of an expansion to the Old Kathiresan Temple which is located a few doors down and is dedicated to the Hindu god Murugan.
Sea Street itself is kind of a bracing introduction to Hinduism in Sri Lanka, and the New Kathiresan Temple is not a bad place to start to get an idea of what day-to-day religious life is like for Hindu Tamils in Colombo. As you make your way down the rather dirty and chaotic street lined with tailors and shops selling Hindu religious icons (not a bad souvenir and, as it's a residential area, at a great price too), you'll get wafts of incense, hear otherworldly chants flowing out of open doorways, and be lured in to look by the constant ringing of the "ghanta" bells.
