Sri Lanka Travel Guide
Date Traveled: August 2017
Sri Lanka Travel Guide
Overview
Sri Lanka is a country with nothing but potential. Until 2009, the country was involved in a 25 year Civil War. Don’t let that scare you though! The was is over and they are ready to embrace tourism! While I wouldn’t consider it the safest place to travel, you just have to be smart about timing and what you do. As much as you may want to get lost and explore, maybe do some thorough research first and make sure it’s an okay area for that. Oh, also be ready to pay everyone off if you have to, hopefully you won’t but just in case. Sri Lanka has amazing hiking, epic surf and kite spots, diving, and desolate beaches (or party filled ones). Hipsters this is your mecca so put it on your list (especially Ella)!
Cost: Live like royalty for dirt cheap, but they do have ‘tourist’ prices so you’ll have to work around that. It cost me about $400/week for everything.
Best way to get around: Rent a car and hire a driver. Unless you drive in crazy parts of the world like India or Brasil, leave the roads in Sri Lanka to someone who drives them everyday. Even if you think you can’t afford it, you probably can so at least look into it. They do have a train system, however trains are almost never on time (aside from morning trains), and I don’t know how safe or clean they are.
Culture
Sri Lanka is a Buddhist country, hence the Buddhas everywhere you go! Sri Lanka is fascinating because they’ve had so many different countries impact their development, be it Dutch, Portugese, or British! Because of this you may see cultural influences that don’t quite match up, or acres and acres of tea plantations. It’s all really cool nonetheless. So aside from outside influences the Sri Lankan’s had it together from the beginning. When visiting the ruins my friend (born and raised in Sri Lanka) explained to me how their engineers who built the ruins centuries ago picked out the exact spots as current day engineers for things such as drainage. That is pretty freaking amazing.
Not all Sri Lankan’s speak English, however a good portion of them speak a small amount. If you stay in touristy areas (which you most likely will), you should have no issue. I got by on two words:
Hadi Hadi- this basically means okay okay. They use it at the end of a conversation, to say okay, alright, etc. So if someone asks you if something is okay? Hadi hadi. It’s best said with a Sri Lankan head bobble, which is not quite as emphasized as the Indian head bobble.
Epa- No, stop bothering me. Some trying to sell you stuff? Tell them epa (ep-pa). If you use this right you may get some pretty entertaining reactions!
Cuisine
Fun fact: Sri Lankan’s eat with their hands! There is a set of rules for it and everything. I chose to use my fork (they do have them for foreigners don’t worry), but it’s pretty interesting to watch!
This place was the most incredible place we lodged and dined at. Oh my freaking goodness. They made us a feast. I wish I had taken a picture of the spread they had for dinner. It was a tad too spicy for me so I was on the verge of crying the whole time.. but that really good kind of crying. The breakfast spread was equally insane; eggs, toast, jams, fruit, meat, papaya juice and more! The papaya you’ll have here is some of, if not, the best in the world (sorry Hawaii!). I’m not sure if you can eat here unless you’re staying here, but it’s an incredible place to stay as well.
Dream Cafe (Ella)
Nothing too special here, you may be able to find better food in Ella. However if you want to go somewhere you know won’t be half bad this is your place. We tried a few things and all of it was good, just nothing amazing. I have to give them credit for still providing all the ‘curries’ as it makes it taste so much better! I think when I ate here I was just too spoiled from the Elephant Safari Hotel.
Want that Corona commercial beach? Fernando’s will get you there. No it’s not a private beach (although you can find plenty of them in that area), but it’s the coolest beach bar around with decent food. Yeah I’m not going to rave about how good the food was, because it was standard. However, standard food is great food in this area. We ate at other places that were… well, let’s go with disappointing because that’s nice compared to what I could say. But back to Fernando’s. Fernando’s has swing tables! So fun! They also have an upstairs where you can look out over the beach, chill on a couch, etc. Their music is great dance-worthy throwback jams. So bottom line the vibe here is awesome. If you want to drink at the beach and hang all day, do it here. I’m pretty sure they have paddleboard rentals and whatnot here as well. The only downside is their service takes forever. Do not go here if you are in a rush, give them 2-3hours minimum. We had to ask for our drinks a few times. You might be questioning going here after reading that, but don’t because again most other places in the area are pretty poor.
Excursions
Udawalawe National Park
There are plenty of National Parks in Sri Lanka where you can go on a safari! My friend and I chose Udawalawe and we saw just about everything aside from leopards. The elephants are so cool!! Some of the animals are normal to Sri Lankans like buffalo and monkeys, but you’ll see these in the park and likely outside of the park as well. Another good park is Yala National Park. You want to check how dry the areas are (more water more animals) before you pick a spot if possible. If you chose Udawalawe the Elephant Safari Hotel can arrange a Safari tour for you!
Ella
HIPSTERS UNITE! Want that ‘I’m not trying’ look while you feet are dangling off the side of an epic train bridge? Sounds like every hipster’s dream. Ella has two main attractions: the Ella bridge and various hikes. In terms of hiking the most well known hikes are Ella Rock and Adam’s Peak. There is a nice ‘downtown’ strip for restaurants, bars, etc to enjoy. It’s a great touristy part of Sri Lanka. Be careful here though the locals are starting to catch on to the tourism and incidents are starting to occur, however they are trying to keep it a safe place.
Sigiriya
This is one of those must-do touristy things when in Lanka. Remember those engineering feats I was trying to stop myself from nerding out on? Those would be located here. So you kind of just have to go wait in line and be a tourist. Go early so you can save yourself some misery. Once you’ve seen the ‘eighth wonder of the world’, there’s a hike to the peak of a nearby mountain where you can get a killer view of Sigiriya. I didn’t have to opportunity to climb it, but believe me it’s on my list for when I go back! Sigiriya takes about 1-3 hours to see depending on how fast you are and what the lines are like. We made it a stop on the way to Trincomlee as there’s not too much to see otherwise, but it would be worth it to stay and do the hike!
Tickets are $30 for foreigners
Sigiriya is a UNESCO World Heritage site (1982)
Read more about Sigiriya here!
Trincomlee
I don’t particularly recommend this area unless you’re not an extremely active person. It’s lots of chilling on the beach. That being said, if they put more SUP rentals and things in this area it could be great, but it’s still developing its tourism. Make sure you’re aware Nilaveli and Uppuveli beaches are the actual tourist area, not Trinco, so stay there. There is Pigeon Island park, which offers some diving but other than that you’re not looking at much to do aside from hang at Fernando’s Bar. I do have to say the beaches here are gorgeous though! So it may be worth going and spending a night here just to see that. It was one of the more expensive areas we stayed in too, almost double what we paid elsewhere per night.
Kalpitiya
This area is how Sri Lanka’s tourism should be set up. Lots of little ‘resorts’, there is a lack of restaurants but that’s okay because you can eat at your hotel. Beautiful beaches once more, gorgeous sunsets, and a kiteboarders paradise!! I didn’t explore this area past kiteboarding, but I believe they get dolphins and whales certain times of the year and have a reef to dive as an excursion.
