Dust is omnipresent from the construction site that is Colombo, Rennie cleaning the polished stone floor of our home at least twice a day and all hard surfaces similarly; as quickly as she\’s finished, it is dusty again. Add gridlocked rush hour traffic pumping out particulates and nitrogen oxide that reacts with the intense sunlight to become ozone and ultrafine particles, and this 07:15am cityscape is unfortunately normal. For all the beauty out of the city, the polluted air within it is horrid at peak times.

With no mass transit network today beyond crowded buses sharing the same crowded streets as everything else, the Colombo Light Rail system cannot come soon enough. The first phase commenced construction on 3rd July this year funded by a $1.25 billion loan from Japan. Eventually it will be a network of seven lines covering a total distance of 75km (47 miles), the forecast completion date for which is variously 2023 and 2025 at a cost of $6 billion.

Steve