Four days in Colombo: the city everyone skips, and the best eating on the island

Colombo's most visited temple, and a magpie of a place: Sri Lankan, Thai, Burmese and Chinese styles piled together, a courtyard of donated Buddha images, vintage cars, a stuffed elephant and cabinets of gifts from a century of pilgrims. Its shrine on stilts out in Beira Lake, reached by a walkway, is the calm half.

Half a kilometre of grass between Galle Road and the sea, laid out by the British in the 1850s for horse racing and now the city's front room. Kite sellers, cricket, courting couples and a line of carts selling isso wade, a prawn fritter you eat standing up. Go at five and stay for the dark.

First night is the one to spend on crab, in pepper or butter, with a bib and no dignity. Book before you land; the kitchens that do it well are full every night of the week.

The wholesale market that supplies most of Colombo, spread over a dozen streets rather than a hall. Come for the noise and the smell of it, not to shop: prices are quoted high to visitors and haggling is expected, so buy fruit and leave the electronics. Sea Street, running north, is the gold market.

Candy-striped in red and white brick, finished in 1909 for Pettah's Muslim traders, and a landmark for ships approaching the harbour long before the towers went up. Non-Muslim visitors are usually welcome outside prayer times; cover your arms, and women should have a scarf for their hair.

The workers' canteens around the market serve the day's curries from about eleven and stop when they run out. Point at what you want, eat with your right hand or ask for a spoon, and pay a couple of hundred rupees.

A Dutch Reformed church of 1749, cruciform, with walls a metre and a half thick and a floor paved with the tombstones of Dutch governors moved here from the demolished church in Fort. The name means wolf's valley, from settlers who took the local jackals for wolves.

The country's national collection, opened in 1877, and worth two unhurried hours. The prize exhibits are the throne, footstool and crown of Sri Vikrama Rajasinha, the last king of Kandy, carried off to Britain when the kingdom fell in 1815 and returned in the 1930s. The bronze and stone galleries are the best preparation there is for the ancient cities.

The streets around the museum have the city's most comfortable cafes, several of them in old villas with gardens. A good moment for hoppers, the bowl-shaped rice pancake, if anywhere is serving them outside breakfast.

Colombo's oldest and largest park, next door to the museum, with a seated golden Buddha, big trees and a working fountain. Named after the mother of King Dutugemunu; it was Victoria Park under the British. Locals use it properly, at either end of the day.

An open stone hall on carved pillars, built to mark independence from Britain on 4 February 1948 and modelled on the audience hall of the Kandyan kings. The museum in the basement covers the independence movement; the terrace above is where Colombo comes to jog at dusk.

Kelaniya Raja Maha Vihara, about ten kilometres from the centre, on a site Buddhists hold the Buddha himself visited. The present temple is mostly nineteenth century over much older foundations, and the reason to come is the interior: wall paintings by Solias Mendis covering the whole building, done in the twentieth century in a deliberately Sri Lankan style rather than a European one. The January full moon brings a procession of elephants and dancers.

Thirty to forty minutes from Kelaniya on the expressway, longer on the old road. Airport formalities here are slow and the terminal is small, so aim to be there three hours before a long-haul flight.