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Srilanka tour - travle time info needed

Posted by: Onki15 on Dec 7, 12 at 01:26 AM Posted in: Asia Jump to last reply

Hi,

We have 5 nights in Srilnaka from 25th december 2012, and this is out intinary
25th reaching colmbo early morning 2 Am, and want to drive down to Kandy - how much time will this take to Kandyan manor?
26th - Nuwara Eliya
27th - Nuwara eliya to....
we actually want to do whale wacthing and have reservation in hikkaduwa on 28th and 29th. But nothing on 27th. what would be a good place closest to mirissa - no availability in any good place in mirissa, weligama. Is staying in tangalla wor th it?

I beleive it takes 2 hrs drive from Hikkaduwa, so for 6 AM whale watching trip, we have to leave hikkaduwa by 4, which is very inocnvenient.

regards
Onkar

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    annhig on Dec 7, 12 at 02:04 PM

    hi onki,

    have you tried putting your itinerary into google maps and see what they give as driving times? i did this with NE to- Matara [nearest large place for your What watching I assume] and got a time of 3 hours 37 minutes, which i suspect is pretty optimistic, given the road and traffic conditions. where is this whale watching actually starting from?

    why not just spend some time in Galle and on the coast - Galle is a lovely place and would be a good stepping off place for your whale watching. We thought that it was a lot more interesting than Kandy; you could stay in the Fort and enjoy the cafes, shops and restaurants, as well as getting tuk tuks out to the coastal villages to access the beach resorts.

    I certainly wouldn't want to be chasing around for a couple of hours in the very early morning before going whale watching unless I had to.

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    Cicerone on Dec 8, 12 at 05:01 AM

    Could not agree more with the above post. You only have 5 days. Due to the extreme hilliness of the terrain in the central areas, driving takes far longer than you would think. From the airport to Kandy is about 3 hours. While roads are (relatively) safe, they are very twisty. If you want to add this drive in the dark on top of an overnight long-haul flight to Sri Lanka, then good on you. I can’t think of much that I would enjoy less.

    From Kandy to NE is about 3 hours or a bit more. Again, this will be quite twisty roads with your driver insisting on passing buses and trucks on blind curves while going uphill. Having become somewhat inured to this from years of travel in India, this mostly does not bother me. But at times it can be unnerving. My suggestion is to look at the window at the wonderful scenery rather than straight ahead and you should be fine.

    I have to say that personally I would skip Kandy and go to the coast and stay there for your 5 days. There are temple areas in the coast which you can visit, as well as the jewel which is Galle itself.

    There is an excellent new highway between Colombo and Galle which cuts travel time by more than half. Doing that at 2 am would be OK as opposed to the Kandy road, IMO. Look at palaces in Tangalle to stay or just along the coast past Galle. I think there are fairly numerous choices. Weiligama is only about 30 minutes from Galle, so staying in the Galle area should work. There are many operators who will take you out to see whales along the coast here.

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