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| Buddhist temple in Dambulla |
Sri Lanka, the island nation, known variously as Emerald
Isle of Asia, Ceylon, Serendip - is beautiful and captivating. It is a tropical paradise that is green and
clean. It offers many things to the
tourist – its sun-kissed beaches are a haven for the young and jolly beach
revellers; the Buddhist temples and the Hindu temples dating back to more than
3000 years and the Ramayana offer salvation to the religiously inclined; its
elephant sanctuaries and national park provide the right environment for the
nature /animal lover; while its hill stations provide the much needed respite
from the intense heat and are extremely scenic.
General Information
for planning a trip to Sri Lanka
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| Our first step on Lankan soil - right outside the Bandaranayake Airport |
Flights
Flight tickets to Sri Lanka are very reasonable. Mihin Lanka, a low-cost Sri Lankan airline,
offers tickets for as low as Rs.6000 from Chennai. Indigo also offers round-trip fares -
Bangalore –Colombo-Bangalore at an unbelievably low cost of Rs.10,000! This is far lower than air ticket costs for
travel within India.
Visa
Sri Lanka offers both visa on arrival and online e-visas that
one can apply for before the travel date, once the flight tickets and hotel
accommodation have been booked. For
Indian visitors, visa fees amounts to US $20 (e-visa). Visa on arrival costs US $25. Hence it is better to apply for e-visas which
is a simple process. The approved visa
is sent by e-mail and is given within a few minutes of applying for the same.
Here is the link to
the visa page - http://www.eta.gov.lk/slvisa/visainfo/weta.jsp
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| With our friendly AirBnB Hosts in Kandy |
Accommodation
Air BnB offers the convenience of booking homestays or
booking complete homes for various budgets.
It is easily the best option for people travelling in larger groups. When we with our extended family of 7 members
visited Sri Lanka, we booked complete 3-bedroom homes in Colombo, Kandy, Nuwara
Eliya and Galle. All of us had
comfortable rooms and the price we paid was fairly reasonable. Similar accommodation in regular hotels would
have cost us quite a bit. In addition,
we got to use the well-equipped kitchen to prepare breakfast (when it was not
part of the deal) and dinner on days we decided to have a simple Indian meal.
Food
There are plenty of Indian hotels in Colombo that serve tasty
Indian fare. In most places, we were able to get vegetarian
food. We also tried Sri Lankan local food
like String hoppers – which are basically rice noodles or Idiyappam served with a curry.
Kerala cuisine like Aapam, Puttu,
Parota are also popular here. Pol Sambol is an accompaniment that we tasted
– very similar to the thenga molazhapudi . Our hosts in Kandy offered this for
breakfast and it tasted extremely good.
It is made of freshly grated coconut, onions and red chillies.
We also picked up fresh milk, thick curds, fruits,
cucumbers, onions and tomatoes, and rice from the local store in Colombo and
Kandy and prepared simple meals of cooked rice with MTR Puliyogare powder
(which we had taken from Bangalore), salad, and curd rice. Pineapples and jackfruit are also available
in plenty and we gorged on them.
It is best to carry some essential food items like
Puliyogare powder, Pickles, Indian snacks and ofcourse, the all-time favourite
of Maggie Noodles. With 5 youngsters who
were ever hungry, our one large suitcase dedicated to food and snacks came in
handy.
In Galle, we had a Sri Lankan buffet lunch. It was fantastic – some lip-smacking
memorable items were the jackfruit curry cooked in coconut milk, and their
version of the brinjal curry.
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| Budhi - our Tour Guide welcoming us! |
Transportation
We hired a vehicle from Erenga Kurera Tours. Their driver, Budhi picked us from the
airport and took us all over Sri Lanka.
We traversed the roads in a Toyota Kdh van. It was most convenient and quite comfortable
for the seven of us and our luggage. Budhi was a silent but friendly
driver. He drove carefully and acted as
our tour guide.
Here are the highlights from our trip -
We were a family of seven – 3 adults and 4 children (2
teens, and 2 pre-teens) who set out to visit the beautiful island country of
Sri Lanka. Considering the motley
crowd, we had to plan the trip to cater to everyone’s needs. We needed to pack in some adventure, some
amount of history and culture, a little bit of leisure, plenty of beach-time,
and of course great food. After reading
up and researching online, we zeroed in our 10-day vacation with the following
itinerary.
Colombo – Pinnewala Elephant
Sanctuary – Kandy – Nuwara Eliya – Galle – Colombo
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| Our Sri Lankan itinerary |
We covered a total distance of nearly 1000 kms over the 10
days. We wanted to visit the Udawalawe
National Park to the south before reaching Galle but could not fit this in. We will have to plan another trip to Sri Lanka to include the northern territories and the eastern coast.
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