DaveH

Hi,

My wife and I are planning a trip to Sri Lanka mid-Sept. (13-26th). I’ve spent many hours reading amazing trip reports kindly posted by numerous authors on this site. We’ve pulled together a trip plan, would appreciate anyone’s thoughts.

We plan to book the first half through an agent (eg: Boutique Sri Lanka) and travel via driver up until to Kandy, then we will move to train/taxi as we like the idea of having some independence. We’ve both travelled a lot and are happy to explore places and organise as we go. We’re Irish, in our mid-thirties, easy going and want to get a flavour of different types of Sri Lanka. We like the outdoors and love to get out hiking. We love food and are looking forward to tasting all that Sri Lanka has to offer. Accommodation wise we’re happy so long as it’s clean and relatively comfortable. We like smaller places with character and don’t tend to enjoy larger commercial resorts as much. We will plan to splurge a little in the cultural triangle, but hope to step it back after that. No 5 star hotels, equally, no party palaces. Aiming for $50-60 a night. I’ve read that booking hotels in advance is a lot cheaper due to rack rates. Will leaving the booking of accommodation in the second half be a problem?

Our plan at the moment is as follows:
Arrive Sat 13th @ 9pm (night) – trying to decide whether to stay in Negombo or head north to Horathopola. Is it possible to get to Horathopola at this time of night? Leaving at 10pm, assuming 1hr to clear airport? Or is the weather likely to be bad there this time of year, therefore, making more sense to overnight in Negombo and head straight to CT the next day. Thoughts?

Sun 14th: relax in Horathopola (tbd weather). Sun 14/Mon 15th: Drive to Cultural triangle, stay in either Cinnamon Lodge or Heritance Kandalama. Spend 2-3 nights. Visit Dambulla, Sigiriya, maybe Pollonoruwa as day trips.

Wed (17) travel to Kandy, spend 1 night. Stay in Queens.

Plan is to part company with driver here. Thurs (18th), take the train to Ella. Any recommendations for places to stay in Ella. Hoping for cheap and cheerful here as hoping to be outside hiking during the day. Plan to spend 3 nights here. Can anyone recommend a cooking course?

Sun – Fri – This is the part we are having trouble deciding on. We’d like to head to the coast and spend a few days in the sun relaxing/reading books/swimming etc. Would be nice to have water sports (surfing/diving/snorkelling ). The two places we are looking at are 1) South east coast – Tangalle or 2) Arugam bay (east coast). We are contemplating not booking this part until closer to the time – depending on weather we will chose one over the other. Is this a good idea? Any issues with this?

Have read that the weather in the south can be nice this time of year, (but also not so nice). Have read that the water can be wild though. We can both swim well (comfortable swimming 1km off west coast of Ireland), but not sure how wild is wild for the water in the south? If we go South, we may move after a few days to Marissa, to be closer to the airport on the last day. Any recommendations for this?

For Arugam bay, any recommendations for accommodation? Are we likely to get better weather here versus the South? Is there a particular area that is recommended?

Fri 26th, fly from Colombo at 10pm. How safe is it to leave travelling back from the east or south coast on that day? We plan to hire a driver and car locally.

Many thanks for your help,
Dave

Kathie

A few thoughts: I'd spend the first night in Negombo. I wouldn't want to be on the road any longer than necessary late at nights after a long flight. I am unable to find Horathopola on my map -maybe there is another spelling? In any case early the next morning I'd head to the Dambulla area. I think you need a minimum of three nights in the area (that is just two full days) to visit the must-sees: Dambulla Cave Temples, Sigiriya, and Polonnaruwa. We loved the Kandalama and would stay there again.

Sorry, can't help with beaches, as we didn't visit any. One caution to you - travel takes longer - much longer than you would expect given the distances. If google says it takes two hours, it will take 4 to 6 hours.

DaveH

Hi Kathie,
Thanks a million for replying. I've read your trip report (More than once )and it was one of the reports I was basing my itinerary for the earlier part of the holiday (amongst others)
Horathapola estate is about an hour north east of the airport according to their website http://www.horathapola.com/location/ looked nice and we thought it might be nice after the long flight. There's not much to do there which would be perfect if the weather was ok but might be a waste if not.

Can you or anyone else comment on any of the general questions such as whether the plan to wait until around kandy to decide which beach is best could cause issues?

D

Kathie

Horathapola looks lovely. I was thinking it was a town and couldn't find it on the map! That looks like it wouldn't be much out of the way - if you can get there in an hour.

Sorry, I really don't know how easy it would be to make lodging choices on the fly. Generally, booking in advance gets you better - sometimes much better - prices. And I don't know how busy it would be so whether places might be full.

Have a wonderful trip. We loved Sri Lanka.

crellston

We were travelling at a different time of year ( feb - March ) an did exactly as you are suggesting I.e. Wait and see. we headed for the South coast and tried several locations. Goyambokka ( near Tangalle) , Weligama , Mirrissa and Galle. We struggled a little to find accomodation in some places but always found something reasonable. Our favourite place was Goyambokka, a small beach, good swimming and some nice beach shacks selling seafood. More of a "local" feel than Mirrissa which was bigger but very pretty, bigger hotels and more people. My recollection is that there was good surfing there.


We had planned to visit Yala but found that to be completely booked up so had to change our plans. That was in 2011 at the time of the worst floods in decades so maybe that affected availability. There did seem to be a shortage of accomodation back then.

My concern with your plan would be that, as you are travelling as the monsoon, others have the same idea as you.

DaveH

Thanks guys for the answers.

Crellston, how did you book the accommodation on the fly? Did you book directly or via sites like hotels.com/hostelworld etc? is there a potential benifit to one over the other? Has anyone used AirBnB?

Does anyone have a recommendation for accommodation in Ella?

Thanks.

crellston

We would just turn up at a location ( having done a little research beforehand) and have a look at 2 or 3 places and pick one we liked.we were staying mostly in budget and mid range places with en suite facilities and aircon ( most of the time). I think I used hostelworld fro research but didn't book with them but more often than not we just stumbled upon a place.

That really only applied to our 10 days spent on the coast. Elsewhere, everything seemed to be booked solid. We had to change hotels a couple of time in the Cultural triangle and Kandy and really struggled to find anywhere. I suppose the main benefit is that you get to look at the rooms before deciding to stay. Not that important if staying in upper range places but v. Important in budget and mid range places where often things are not as advertised in SL!

highly recommend Mountain Heavens in Ella mentioned in the previous post. Fantastic views!

Here is a link to my TR from a couple of years ago with some more detail
http://www.fodors.com/community/asia...-and-curry.cfm

Re "If we go South, we may move after a few days to Marissa, to be closer to the airport on the last day. Any recommendations for this?

I THINK there is a new, faster road open from the South but do check! We stayed in Galle before heading back to the airport. It turned out to be an 6 hour drive which was a real pain! Mirrissa is a few hours drive from Galle.

thursdaysd

I traveled the same year as crellston, and had similar problems. I abandoned the idea of going to Yala as I couldn't find acceptable accommodation, booking a month or so ahead. I wanted to change hotels in Kandy and spent a morning looking for somewhere with no success. I don't know whether I would have had more success on the coast, as I booked ahead, but it seemed pretty crowded. However, I was traveling in January.

Rishani

There is a expressway from Matara (southern end of the island)to Colombo (capital city). It is a 1 hour 30 Minutes drive. Another from Colombo to BIA (25 Minutes distance). There are exits to Galle and Mirissa from Southern Expressway. Monsoon had a late start and right now it is rainy in Galle/Mirissa area; but; will be clear in next few days.

DaveH

Thanks everyone for answering. Our plans have firmed up a lot at this stage and there's only one or two questions left which would be great to get some advice on.
Our plans are as follows. We've booked the first 5 nights accommodation and a car and driver through boutique S L as they came in considerably cheaper than red dot who we also got to quote. We staying first night in araliya lodge in Negombo, then up to cinnamon lodge for three nights) ( would have loved to stay in kandalama but BSL came up with a great price of 400$ for 3 night half board). We'll do day trips to Polonnaruwa and sigiriya and the dambulla caves. The on to kandy where we'll stay at the Queens for one night. Getting the expo train to ella and booked a hopefully nice b&b via airb&b (ella mount) for three nights. The plan at that point is probably to go to arugam bay as the weather is likely to be better there than on the south coasts (if not we'll likely change our plans and head to the tangalla area).
So to the questions:
1. Has anyone got a suggestion for places to visit between negombo and the cultural triangle. We don't want to visit pinawella orphanage and we're thinking of Yapahuwa (sp) but we're told this was not on the way? Is it a long way out?
2. Is it worth going to kandalama for lunch? Expensive? Seeing sigiriya in the morning, lunch in Kandalama and the on to dambulla caves one of the days is a tentative plan.
3. As we're only spending one day in Kandy should we get there as early as possible from the CT by not stopping on the trip down?
4. Can anyone recommend a cooking class in Ella. Ella spice garden??
5. We fly from Colombo at 9pm. Is it reasonable to leave arugam bay early in the morning (6am) via taxi and make our flights? Any good places to stop on the way? Or would it make more sense to break the journey up and spend a night along the way?

Thanks in advance for any answers.

Kathie

I'd say go straight from Negombo to the cultural triangle.

The Kandalama was not terribly expensive for lunch, though I can't remember the exact price.

I thought I'd love Kandy - but I didn't. It is supposed to be the place to shop, but we saw nothing exceptional, and the prices were very high. The only thing I bought there were vanilla beans. The Temple of the Tooth is well worth seeing, but not much else. We loved the place we stayed - The Kandy House - and wished we had more time there.

Sorry, don't know about cooking classes in Ella. My experience of the various spice gardens is that they were mostly interested in selling various ayurevedic treatments and not much else. I can't imagine doing a cooking class at the spice garden we visited. Ask your hotel for a recommendation.

I can't help you with your return drive to the airport, but I'm sure Mohammend knows.

DaveH

Thank Kathie.

Can anyone else help with any of the questions but in particular on the last one about getting back to the airport from Arugam bay on the day of our flight.