Sri Lanka is a relatively compact island (around 430 km long and 230 km wide) just of the south coast of India. Influenced by the nearby sub continent but also very distinct in its culture, nature and sights to see.
Sri Lanka makes for a great trip in itself, or coupled with a trip to the heavenly Maldives or even if you want to escape the hustle and bustle of India for a bit of a more relaxed pace and life.
A haven for nature, you’ll get your fill of Tea, meet Elephants and Turtles, take some great hikes, visit the biggest Buddhas, explore ancient temples and ride trains through lush green landscapes.
When, Where & How
December to March is meant to be the best time to travel (for the West and Central areas) but you may, as we did get some surprises with the weather and get a significant amount of rain over Christmas and New Year…the country is not lush and green for no reason!
Despite being relatively small in size, it can take some time to get around the country. Owing to a turbulent recent history the middle and south is more well touristed than the north, along with many of the key sites to see. So a couple of weeks will probably have you focusing on a loop around the South western quadrant of the island as we did.
To get around we opted for a car and driver, which optimises your time to see all you can and gives the flexibility to move around without having to take on the locals and their special driving!
We booked our hotels ourselves and organised our car through Lion Royal Tourisme who provided us with our driver (the buddha-like Kas) a nice new Prius and the ability to go wherever we wanted for around $50 per day.
You have to consider that the driver has a working day of around 8hrs, distances are typically not more that 200km per day and usually most hotels have a drivers’ quarters where they can rest and eat which comes as part of your own room booking (do check with the hotel though).
Colombo
The capital city will probably be your first port of call. At around 800k people, it is far from the big Asian mega cities, but it has all the busyness, colour and noise you would expect from Asia.
We stayed at the Colombo courtyard, seemingly in the middle of the city sprawl but will still need to make your way around the city with some transport.
You will find that haggling will get you just paying double whereas if you succeed to get the meter running your journey will mysteriously take twice as long (passing by sights you never asked for), so you end up paying the same price. It’s still cheaper than a London cab, so go with it and enjoy the view!
This also lead us to some sights we had not planned, colourful hindhu temples, the Buddhist temple of Gangaramaya, one of the most important of Colombo where a zigarat of buddhas
will lead you to a huge, orange enrobed Buddha in meditating pose. You will quickly learn here that any pictures with Buddha you will need to be side on and not with your back facing Buddha.
Across the road is the Seema Malaka, much more serene, set on the lake
Get a bit of the history and background of the city with a visit to the Colombo National museum. A beautiful old building, but with most of its history in photographs as those dastardly Brits had pillaged most curios back to the British museum!
A nice dinner whilst here can be had at The Lagoon – set inside the swanky Cinnamon hotel it is located in a picture perfect setting whilst dining on first class food. It is a bit up market, so if you turn up in shorts and flip flops (like Matt) then the staff will provide you with a sarong to properly attire yourself!
On the road to Sigirya
Heading North East, the road to Sigirya has a number of sights to see on the way, so make sure you are up early, complete your meditation and get on the road to get the most from the day.
About an hour and a half from Colombo you’ll come to Pinnawala and its elephant orphanage – looking after baby elephants found on their own in the wild and now having one of the biggest collections of elephants in the world.
Make sure you are here by 11am when the elephants get their daily trip down to the river – stopping all traffic and pedestrians as they march to and from their daily shower…and to say hello!
The first century rock temples of Dambulla are a must visit for the day where Buddha makes the penitent scale slippery rocks to the top of the hill (surveilled by troupes of monkeys all the way).
It is worth this hike, where you’ll find Buddha in all sorts of poses in colorfully adorned caves. If you are here at the end of the day you may even have the place to yourselves as we had.
At the bottom of the hill is a 30m golden Buddha, that houses Buddha from all across the ‘world’ (the world being Asia).
Our hotel for this part of the trip was the jurassic park like Aliya, a magnificently situated place with huge lobby and palacious veranda.
Polonnaruwa
Just by the hotel are the ruins of Polonnaruwa, a royal ancient city from the 10uth Century. Spread over kilometres of land it becomes very useful to have a car to pick you up and get you between the different sites (especially when it is raining cats and dogs…and monkeys).
The quadrangle
Shiva Devale 2
Gal Vihara
With the continued rain we had the place almost to ourselves, and with the monkeys jumping from Buddha to Buddha and the wafting smell of incense it made for a very atmospheric trip. Expect at least half a day of exploring (for us it was 6 hours).
and be prepared to get your feet wet if it is raining!
The Lion Rock
The main sight of Sigirya is the Lion Rock…Sri Lanka’s answer to Uluru (except you can climb up).
Expect heavy crowds, but still very much worth it as you make your way through the gardens, its hydrostatic fountains and between the feet of the lion.
To a hike up the rickety stairs and precarious walkways to the top of the rock for spectacular views
And explicit rock paintings
until you reach the top with its Mayan like terraces and scenic pools
Kandy
Cultural hot spot of Sri Lanka, you’ll find arts, crafts, Buddhas, temples, dancing, gems and all combinations of these things melded together.
The main sight is the Sacred Temple of the Tooth Relic – built in the 16th century to house the tooth of Buddha, plundered by the Dutch and bombed by the Tamil Tigers, but still here today with its precious treasure.
Get here at 6pm…maybe 6.15pm…possibly 6.30…surely 6.45pm and the tooth will be revealed to the faithful to the cacophony of drums and trumpets.
The next main sight is the Rangahala cultural dance, at various venues but we watched ours at the Kandyan Cultural Centre. Drums, tambourines, peacock dances, fire dances, more drums and fire walking (with audience participation) .
Malwathu Maha Viharaya makes for a nice little side trip to visit its 300 monks and their little museum of monk curios.
Roadside Shopping
As you head from place to place, especially around Kandy, you will get the chance (whether you want or not) to stop off for local handicrafts and products. For Matt, all shopping has to be avoided but in the interests of culture we have tested out all the different stops for you!
Around Kandy you will find a plethora of shopping sites; make sure you pick up some roadside curd and honey…delicious!
You’ll have the chance to visit a spice garden. Normally accompanied with a ‘free lunch’, where you’ll learn that you have entered a garden of eternal life where all these herbs and spices can cure all ills and problems you make have…for a good price, just for you!
Local gem factories, where you will learn all you ever wanted about the history, types and making of gems and jewelry…and a chance to buy!
Arts and crafts, comprising lots of wood and batik paintings. Collections of pretty colourful things to take back home, but our suggestion is to hold your spending spree until the south west coast (around Galle) as prices are a little cheaper and you won’t need to cart your souvenirs with you for most of the trip.
Nuwara Eliya
Heading up into the hills (and potentially rain) you’ll be surrounded by tea plantations that you can tour, taste and buy to your heart’s content.
Mackwoods Estate puts on a pretty good show where you can do all of the above really well. A tour around the factory will let you inhale several cups of tea (with the dry leaf powder in the atmosphere), followed by some proper tasting and some even more proper buying!
Be prepared that tea tasting here really brews a strong cuppa…keep an eye on the sugar that is deposited in the the tea and it can get quite sweet too.
Another, more intimate tea experience can be had at the Pedro Estate, where you can get a much more in depth tour on all the phases of making tea, followed by the tasting.
Stop at the Tea Bush hotel on the way up, for amazing views (through fog) and an up close visit to the Ramboda falls.
A nice day trip from NE is to the Horton Plains for a bit of hiking through some small canyons through to World’s End…although on the day we hiked it was so foggy you could not see where the world started or finished!
Baker’s falls are one place that will be impressive no matter the weather
and as you descend from the plains you’ll come across all manner of wildlife.
Staying in Nuwara Eliya has to be at The Grand, like a very large, old English home that has a lot of wood and warmth to it.
And for a special dinner head to the Heritance Tea Factory for dinner on their old Victorian railway carriage (not connected to any moving train) where the cosy interior makes for a delightful evening.
Try to leave Nuwara Eliya by train, your driver should be able to organise tickets (be sure to get these some days in advance) and then they can drop you off for the train, meeting you at the destination of Ella.
Go for second class tickets as first class puts you in a hermetically sealed box that provides for none of the romance of the beautiful train journey. 2nd class allows you to open windows, hang out and feel the breeze on your face.
Passing some beautiful countryside (even if foggy and rainy!)
Yala West National Park
For a bit of wild nature head to the Yala West National Park. You will need to organise a 4 by 4 tour as a Prius won’t do for driving through the undergrowth!
Crocs, dears, buffalo, all manner of birds…and even a leopard that was waiting for the rain to stop.
and of course…elephants!
If you still have time in the day then head to the nearby Kataragama temple complex, sacred to Buddhists, Hindus and Muslims…and troups and troups of monkeys!
Expect lots of people, fermenting fruit and burning coconuts for a heady mix for the senses.
Tangalle and around
Spend the night in Tangalle, for idyllic coastal views
and a chance to buy the catch of the day from the roadside fishermen.
Tangalle is a good base to explore the Mulgirigala monastic site, where temples have been carved out of a 200m high rock outcrop
A chance to stretch your legs going up and down the many steps, plus to encounter the rock climbing monkeys that literally hang around the site.
At Dickwella you will ascend to the ultimate of all Sri Lanka’s Buddhas with the 50m high Buddha of Wewurukannala temple.
You can literally get into Buddhas head
Plus see what awaits you if you sin too much.
Just by Dickwella is the Hummanaya blow hole…named after the sound it makes as the water comes shooting out.
Heading along northwest along the coast around Koggala you will come across the amazing stilt fishermen. Poised perfectly waiting for their catch (of fish and tourists), no matter what the weather.
Christmas on the beach of Hikkaduwa
A final stop for us on this tour of Sri Lanka was to spend our Christmas days at Hikkaduwa.
As well as a few days to just stay in one spot, it also affords a bit of sun, sea and sand to relax, plus some last sights to see.
Here you can indulge in some snorkeling and come across the giant resident green turtle that patrols the waters.
Turtle conservation is a big thing on this part of the coast, where you can do you part with a visit that will keep the turtles off the local fisherman’s menu.
Despite the relaxation of the beach enticing you in, make sure you do a side trip to Galle, a Dutch colonial town that makes us ‘Dutch’ feel right at home and provides some interesting things to do and see.
The Martin Wickramasinghe (famous Sri Lankan writer) Museum of Folk Culture gives plenty of folky sights of masks , puppets and all things traditional.
Whilst in Galle make sure you go for high tea at the Amangalla hotel…easily the best of the trip with mountains of sandwiches and cakes, accompanied with freshly brewed tea.
Heading north to the airport, make time for one last Buddhist goodbye at Kande Vihara for a most perfect seated Buddha…enjoy!
