We visited Sri Lanka in November 2007 with Ilisa. It was our first time there, and was also the first entry in Ilisa's passport :). It was a short trip (4 days and 3 nights) organized by Sri Lankan Airlines itself as part of their holiday packages. Our travel route was Airport - Pinnewala Elephant Orphanage - Kandy (1 night stay and local sight seeing) - Colombo (2 night stay and local sight seeing)- Negombo beach - Airport. The package included hotels as well as a dedicated taxi for transfers. (Photos)
Sight seeing
Kandy is a beautiful hill station which used to be the capital of the erstwhile kings of Sri Lanka. It is a very green city built around an artificial lake, with numerous gardens within and around the city. Our primary attraction was the temple of the Tooth Relic that is housed within the royal palace. As we landed up on a full moon day, it was particularly crowded and it took us around 3 hours to tour the temple complex. The upside was that we got a good feel for the people of the land. There was a wide spectrum of devotees, from school going teenagers to retired elders and from brightly coloured clothes to white prayer robes. Something that struck me pretty vividly in the temple was the feeling of absolute peace and tranquility in spite of a very large crowd.
After the temple visit, we chose to skip the gardens and headed to Colombo. We halted at one of the spice gardens on the way, which was also an Ayurvedic medicinal centre. It was late in the evening by the time we got there, so we just decided to roam around the area where our hotel Grand Oriental was located. The next morning was spent visiting the landmarks of Colombo. We were particularly interested in the Ganga Ramya and Seema Malakaya temple complex. These were impressive, especially the latter which is located in the middle of an artificial lake. After cooling off in the afternoon, we headed out for the promenade late in the evening. It is a rocky sea front, and we didn't venture near the water.
We headed for Negombo the next morning. Negombo is a small town with good beaches close to the airport, so we decided to spend some time there before catching our afternoon flight back to Hyderabad. We planted ourselves at one of the numerous beach side restaurants that gave us an opportunity to intertwine playing on the beach and finishing off our lunch. The beaches were very clean, but there was high tide that day and we were advised against getting into the water. We ended up just wetting our feet and basically running after Ilisa.
Shop
Sri Lanka produces great tea and great textiles. We picked up some tea, clothes and souvenirs at good rates from Lakmudra in Colombo. We found some great quality T-Shirts at New Silk Garden at Kandy (on the way to Colombo) at prices much lower than in India. We bought up some Ayurvedic medicines for Sheetal's parents from Genuine Lanka Spice on the Kandy-Colombo road, but the jury is still out on their effectiveness.
Eat
Self confessed seafood junkies that we are, we had high expectations on the culinary front. It was overall a little disappointing to our taste buds (personal opinion) except for the restaurant in Hotel Galle Face Green that served great food in an even better ambience. While we could have just chanced upon not so great restaurants during transit as we were halting on things that were on the way at most time, even the planned visits weren't satisfactory. The restaurant at Hotel Taj Samudra was particularly a let down as we went a long way just to have food there that turned out to be not so great.
We enjoyed eating fresh fruits a lot though- they are there in amazing variety and are very affordable. In fact, one of the tastiest dinner we had was purely made up of fruits- small bananas, lemon sized oranges, mangoes (in November!) and red coconuts with seemingly infinite water in them!
Epilogue
There are lots of things we liked about Sri Lanka. The place is very beautiful and green and is very easy to like. The striking similarities to Kerala gave us a feeling that we were still in India at some times :).
The people are amazing- very soft spoken and cultured, incredibly disciplined and apparently at peace with themselves. We had our apprehensions about the prolonged violence happening around them, but they seem to have taken it in their stride and go about their daily life as if nothing is wrong with the world. There were heavily armed soldiers at every nook and corner frequently asking us for our documents, but at no point did we sense the tension or edginess that I was expecting. If anything, the soldiers were even more friendly, greeting us with a pleasant smile and "You are from India!" once they see the passports.
One disappointment from a tourist point of view is the lack of infrastructure for travelling across the country. The travel times for Kandy are excruciatingly high as a result of narrow roads that get clogged around all towns, and we were told it is even more difficult in other areas. We had a tough time with Ilisa on the Kandy-Colombo leg as the 6 hour+ drive got to her. The train network is even slower, so there is no real option except to go by road.
The other disappointment was lack of regular restaurants, especially in Colombo. We had budgeted for simple not-too-fancy restaurants providing good food, but ended up having to eat in upmarket restaurants within hotels and thereby digging heavily into our reserves.
The Pinnewala elephant orphanage was also rather disappointing (and expensive if I may add). It was no fun seeing so many elephants chained up, and personally I have found the elephants in zoos looking happier.
-Phani
Sight seeing
Kandy is a beautiful hill station which used to be the capital of the erstwhile kings of Sri Lanka. It is a very green city built around an artificial lake, with numerous gardens within and around the city. Our primary attraction was the temple of the Tooth Relic that is housed within the royal palace. As we landed up on a full moon day, it was particularly crowded and it took us around 3 hours to tour the temple complex. The upside was that we got a good feel for the people of the land. There was a wide spectrum of devotees, from school going teenagers to retired elders and from brightly coloured clothes to white prayer robes. Something that struck me pretty vividly in the temple was the feeling of absolute peace and tranquility in spite of a very large crowd.
After the temple visit, we chose to skip the gardens and headed to Colombo. We halted at one of the spice gardens on the way, which was also an Ayurvedic medicinal centre. It was late in the evening by the time we got there, so we just decided to roam around the area where our hotel Grand Oriental was located. The next morning was spent visiting the landmarks of Colombo. We were particularly interested in the Ganga Ramya and Seema Malakaya temple complex. These were impressive, especially the latter which is located in the middle of an artificial lake. After cooling off in the afternoon, we headed out for the promenade late in the evening. It is a rocky sea front, and we didn't venture near the water.
We headed for Negombo the next morning. Negombo is a small town with good beaches close to the airport, so we decided to spend some time there before catching our afternoon flight back to Hyderabad. We planted ourselves at one of the numerous beach side restaurants that gave us an opportunity to intertwine playing on the beach and finishing off our lunch. The beaches were very clean, but there was high tide that day and we were advised against getting into the water. We ended up just wetting our feet and basically running after Ilisa.
Shop
Sri Lanka produces great tea and great textiles. We picked up some tea, clothes and souvenirs at good rates from Lakmudra in Colombo. We found some great quality T-Shirts at New Silk Garden at Kandy (on the way to Colombo) at prices much lower than in India. We bought up some Ayurvedic medicines for Sheetal's parents from Genuine Lanka Spice on the Kandy-Colombo road, but the jury is still out on their effectiveness.
Eat
Self confessed seafood junkies that we are, we had high expectations on the culinary front. It was overall a little disappointing to our taste buds (personal opinion) except for the restaurant in Hotel Galle Face Green that served great food in an even better ambience. While we could have just chanced upon not so great restaurants during transit as we were halting on things that were on the way at most time, even the planned visits weren't satisfactory. The restaurant at Hotel Taj Samudra was particularly a let down as we went a long way just to have food there that turned out to be not so great.
We enjoyed eating fresh fruits a lot though- they are there in amazing variety and are very affordable. In fact, one of the tastiest dinner we had was purely made up of fruits- small bananas, lemon sized oranges, mangoes (in November!) and red coconuts with seemingly infinite water in them!
Epilogue
There are lots of things we liked about Sri Lanka. The place is very beautiful and green and is very easy to like. The striking similarities to Kerala gave us a feeling that we were still in India at some times :).
The people are amazing- very soft spoken and cultured, incredibly disciplined and apparently at peace with themselves. We had our apprehensions about the prolonged violence happening around them, but they seem to have taken it in their stride and go about their daily life as if nothing is wrong with the world. There were heavily armed soldiers at every nook and corner frequently asking us for our documents, but at no point did we sense the tension or edginess that I was expecting. If anything, the soldiers were even more friendly, greeting us with a pleasant smile and "You are from India!" once they see the passports.
One disappointment from a tourist point of view is the lack of infrastructure for travelling across the country. The travel times for Kandy are excruciatingly high as a result of narrow roads that get clogged around all towns, and we were told it is even more difficult in other areas. We had a tough time with Ilisa on the Kandy-Colombo leg as the 6 hour+ drive got to her. The train network is even slower, so there is no real option except to go by road.
The other disappointment was lack of regular restaurants, especially in Colombo. We had budgeted for simple not-too-fancy restaurants providing good food, but ended up having to eat in upmarket restaurants within hotels and thereby digging heavily into our reserves.
The Pinnewala elephant orphanage was also rather disappointing (and expensive if I may add). It was no fun seeing so many elephants chained up, and personally I have found the elephants in zoos looking happier.
-Phani
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