Ah, Negombo! We stumbled into town in the wee hours after our flight from Singapore touched down (we had an overnight in Singapore on the way to Colombo.) We had not pre-booked a hotel, but a Japanese tourist who was sharing our taxi happened to be going to the place we wanted to check out. Unfortunately, our driver didn't seem to have a clue where he was going, despite assurances to the contrary. After much driving up and down the main drag at 2:00 am, and some checking of the Rough Guide map using the taxi headlamps as lighting, we finally found our hotel: the Oasis Beach Resort <http://www.srilankatravelguide.com/NEGhotels.htm>
A perfectly nice hotel right on the beach, with really yummy seafood! We crashed there for two days as we recovered from our exceedingly long journey from Vancouver, British Columbia, Canada. We read heard various snotty remarks about Negombo, some comparing it to Kuta in Bali, but we found it quite pleasant. Of course, the tourists have been scared away by the tsunami, so it was probably pretty quiet compared to days of yore. We walked along the beach looking very pasty-white with our "fresh-from-the-BC-rains" skintone.
