A Sri Lankan night can be a magical experience but if you want western style nightlife you really are in the wrong country.
In Colombo there are casinos and clubs, which tend to cater for the more affluent and small towns may have a local bar (catering for the more desperate) but these are probably not the sort of place you will want to frequent.
Your hotel management will do their best to entertain you as you sip your overpriced after dinner drinks with your fellow Europeans but believe me, the novelty will soon wear off and even the most love-struck couples will be eager for a change of scenery by the end of the first week.
Touts or beach boys can be a pain in the arse, but do not let that stop you getting to know the locals and if you get invited to visit a Sri Lankan home jump at the chance. Unless your new found friends are Muslim they will almost certainly agree to share a beer with you of an evening so if you enjoy your daytime visit (i.e. if you are not asked for money) suggest getting together for a drink after dinner one night.
The locals may know a reasonable local bar but for a real treat get yourself invited to their home to share a few beers with their family and friends (their friends will turn up anyway so you might as well include them in the invitation). Arrange a time and place for them to pick you up in a three-wheeler (only tourists call them tuk tuks), grab your bug spray and enjoy your evening. It gets lively and even though you will be buying all the beer, it is a relatively cheap night out.
Is this your business?
We booked our tour of Sri Lanka online from Australia, through a travel agency called Abans Tours. Their rates are slightly more expensive than other tour companies but the cars they provide are safe and comfortable and all their chauffers speak english. We got ourselves a comfortable chauffer driven car that took us around Colombo and Kandy.
On my last weekend there I just asked my chauffer Jayraj to take me to a nightclub in Colombo city. He took us to a club called Tramps at the Galadari Hotel which was filled with alot of socialites and other locals. There were a few Germans and Americans, but my sister and I made friends with alot of locals and club hopped to other clubs around the area like H20 and Onyx.
The clubs are very stylish and the alcohol is so cheap!
We went back early this year to meet up with our local Sri Lankan friends we had met on our first visit to Sri Lanka, but Tramps and Onyx were closed. Howevernewer clubs had opened which were just as awsome!
The nightlife in Sri Lanka is pretty much western style and the music they play at the clubs there is mostly hiphop and house.
Colombo nightlife is an awsome experience at a very low cost - and you get to meet some really great people!