15th November 2013 – 20th
November 2013
When the air ticket from Chennai,
India to Colombo touched almost ground zero, I could not but wait to buy my
holiday. The tickets were booked immediately and the travel plan was yet to be
made. This is going to be an absolute back packing trip for 5 days.
Time being less, I sat with my
usual research of where to stay the economy best through tripadvisor.com and lonelyplanet India guide. I
found the places to must see regionally. Being a small tropical island covering
up the entire region looked possible, it was only when I reached there, I knew
the impossibilities. The beauty of the place keeps the feet tied to stay in one
place and enjoy it endlessly, A tight travel plan is definitely not going to
serve the hunger to travel the beautiful Sri Lanka.
We landed the Colombo Airport
with our minimal pre-planned details in hand at 2:20 am. Visa-on-arrival is
easy and hassle free. Once done, we walked out to the lobby to find pre-paid
mobile phone simcard stores inside the airport along with money exchanges. they
are all in abundant and totally economical. We picked up an Airtel SIM card and
exchanged a $100. Outside the departure gate, there were long queue of the
budget Taxis of Tata Nano, followed by auto rickshaws called tuk-tuk and
luxurious imported vehicles of all kinds. This city never sleeps so traveling
is not an issue at all.
As we had pre-booked through Sri
Lanka Hostels, we had got our destination planned for the first few hours sleep.We got a tuk-tuk to Negombo, about 16 kms from
the Colombo airport. The headed to the Beach Monkey Hostel. It was almost 3:30
am by the time we said goodbye to our friendly and helpful Tuk-Tuk guy – Sumit.
A quick coffee offered by the sleepy yet friendly host. We crashed in our clean
room with a beautiful attached and spacious bathroom. We woke up early as 9am
and sat to interact with our host. the sound of the sea waves in a view-able
distance from the hostel made our breakfast amazing. With the help of our host,
we chalked out an approximate plan of our visit. Once done, we walked down the
beach to see the azure blue waves lashing the beach. We spent some time in
Negombo beach and then walked down the market. We had a quick lunch of
continental sea food by the beach and walked back to pack up for our journey.
there is not much to see in Negombo, but a perfect place to rest and
rejuvenate. So we planned to proceed without spending more time there. We
exchanged INR with LKR from the nearest moonstone seller as guided by our host.
Beach monkey is a simple yet awesome place to be at a price as low as $12/per
night including breakfast. The landmark for the hostel is the Lanza Wine Shop
at the basement of the establishment.
From Negombo, we took the local
bus to the main bus stop. There we hailed the AC bus that took us to our nest
destination Kandy. We left Negombo post lunch around 1 pm and were in Kandy by
6pm. As the stay in the Kandy hostel was again done with the help of our host
in Negombo. The Kandy Hostel worker picked us from the bus station and took us
to the beautiful and luxurious house which has been transformed into a hostel.
A feel of a typical Sri Lankan family life experience. We were greeted by the
host with coffee, juice and biscuits. A great dinner followed by a good sleep
for the day. In the mean while, we had decided our next day plan.
We left at 8 am in the hostel
Tuk-Tuk for LKR 2300 for the whole day. We went through Lankan towns, hills,
valleys and reached the ancient ruins of Sigiriya in 4 hours. We bought our tickets
at LKR1200 for SAARC countries while it is LKR 3600 per person for foreigners.
We climbed the top for about 2-3 hours up by more than 2000 steps and saw the
ancient kingdom dating back to 6th century AD. The water garden and the
beautiful landscaping , the history of one of the most technical irrigation
system on globe all are preserved to be viewed by the tourist. After Sigiriya,
we headed back to Dambulla, a 25 kms travel. Dambulla is a Buddhist monastery.
Huge, beautiful,serene and peaceful. We stayed there for an hour and headed
back to Kandy through the rainy mountains. While riding back fro Sigiriya, we
stopped by at the famous Batik factory and showroom. Extremely beautiful but
very expensive. We stopped for lunch in a small thatched roof buffet place. We
had the authentic Sri Lankan vegetarian lunch. At Dambulla, we saw the huge
statue of Lord Buddha meditating and 108 statue of Buddhist monks walking there
way to the statue of lord Buddha. Once done, We headed back to Kandy.
We reached Kandy at about 4:30 pm
and headed directly to the Tooth Relic Temple. This is considered as the most
holy shrine in Sri Lanka. The temple is beautiful and the tooth as engraved in
writing , says that it exists in the ornate casket. The temple is open from
early morning to late evening and the fees is LKR 1000 for foreigners. AT 5 pm
sharp starts the Kandy Dance program in the Temple cultural gathering hall.
This is a performance not to be missed at any cost and is known as
photographer’s delight. Though it has deep history of being originated to drive
black magic from the kings, now it has become a famous tourist attraction. At
around 7 pm, we walked down the white and spotless town of Kandy. We settled
for a dinner at “Bakehouse” on the main street. the balcony view with the aroma
of the local food. It was a day well spent and an evening well enjoyed.
We retired for the day and
started early to visit Anuradhapura, the next morning. We had planned to buy a
cultural triangle ticket for $50 USD to visit all the sites of Anuradhapura.
Our Tuk-Tuk driver took us through without the ticket. It is a better idea to
take a Tuk-Tuk from Kandy. On the entrance of Anuradhapura, we saw the 2000
years old Bodhi tree. It is the oldest tree on the face of earth so far. It is
said that Lord Buddha attained enlightenment there. We saw the stupa of
Ruwanwelisaya in a walking distance from the Maha Bodhi Tree. It is a huge
white stupa and is restored by the Archaeological department. We also saw
the Jetavana from outside, another huge stupa.
We went to the Archaeology Museum and the Folk Museum to see the beautiful artifacts and preserved jewelry, potteries and remains of the past. Once done by late afternoon, we
went to the old town of Anuradhapura. Across Sri Lanka we got good local food,
well cooked, great aroma and fresh. We were back to Kandy by 8 pm. We had our
dinner of fresh fruit and quick packs. From Kandy we boarded the overnight bus
to Colombo. It is a 8 hours travel in a local bus. Unplanned we boarded a
almost filled bus where passengers were standing their way through till
Colombo.
A notable thing about buses in
this beautiful country. The first seat of 3 people is reserves for Clergy and
the 2nd row is for pregnant women. However crowded the bus is, the people get
up for these two categories of people. When the driver saw that we were
tourist, he had the 3rd seat vacated for us. We interacted with the people,
Sinhalese are extremely friendly and helpful people.
We reached Colombo at about 2 AM,
a splash and clean city awake all night, busy with traffic. We decided to skip
Colombo post discussion with the fellow passengers. We decided to go till
Hikkaduwa. The road from Colombo to Hikkaduwa runs south through the shore.
Surprisingly we saw, the train track running parallel between the shore and the
road. We reached there at 5 AM. Walked down the road to find lines of hotels,
diving schools and resorts. We had done our bit of research here as well. We
settled for the Poseidon Diving Station.
The stay is luxurious at a $ 25
USD per day inclusive of breakfast. We crashed for a few hours to wake up to
the beautiful blue sea of Hikkaduwa. We woke up by afternoon and went for lunch
to the nearest Rotti shop, for our authentic Rotti of Sri Lanka. The place is
opposite to a huge resort hidden by a jackfruit tree. The honey banana roti
turned out to me my favorite there. Once done, we caught hold of a travel and
tour person whose contact we still have. We went down till Bentota, enjoyed our
moonstone mine trip and dined an early one in Bentota. We were back to
Hikkaduwa by 10 PM.
Next day was early as we had
plans for deep sea diving but the sea being not so friendly, had to stay back.
We had our snorkeling and swim time there and settled for lunch in Mambo’s towards
the end of Gale Road. The food here was awesome. A Sri Lankan Fish/Chicken meal
was 700 LKR and we enjoyed the sea with our Lion Beer. In the evening, it was
the graduation day for batch 2013 in the Poseidon Diving Station and we
were invited to the party. We drank Local Arrack and danced to the local folk
music on the beach.
Next day morning since the sea
was not good enough to go diving, we called our tour driver and visited the
Turtle Hatchery, tsunami Temple,Tsunami Memorial and drove towards Unawatuna.
We had our lunch in Unawatuna, by the sea. Post lunch we drove towards Gale. We
visited the Gale harbour, Gale cricket stadium, Gale Market.
Towards Sunset, we drove further
south to Koggala. We were late or was it the rough sea for the last two days,
we missed to see the fishermen perched up on the long bamboo sticks to catch
the fish. Once done, we came se the Gale fort. Beautiful and huge is the best
defined. There is a town that exists by itself inside the fort, looks colonial
and was full of music and merry making. The roads had eateries, shops,
bakeries, church, bank and residents. We grabbed a quick bite in the Peddler’s
inn and headed back to Hikkaduwa.
Our awesome trip finally came to
an end when we reached Poseidon Diving Station, said goodbye to the amazing
group of Diving instructors, especially Praveen and headed back to the Colombo
Airport with our Tour guy.
I promised to come back since a
lot is yet to be explored in this beautiful island of Sri Lanka.
