Sri Lanka is a very diverse destination. Especially in the cold Dutch winter, this is a perfect option for a holiday, because the weather is always good over here. I was in Sri Lanka in February 2016 with my friend Marthe. We did a 3-week round trip in this beautiful and interesting country.
This is the first part of my blog about Sri Lanka and is about the first week of our trip:
Tip: In the map, turn the different layers on or off via the left square button in the grey bar.
1. Colourful fishing boats in Negombo
Negombo is a great option to stay your first night in Sri Lanka. Negombo is located very close to the airport, so after you arrive you’ll be quickly at your hotel and can immediately spend some hours on the beach. Negombo’s beach is not as pretty as the beaches in the South of Sri Lanka, but there are a lot of fisherman and fishing boats making it worth taking a stroll on the beach.
Scattered along the main road are many small family-runned restaurants. The older generation doesn’t speak English very well and need their kids to talk with the tourists visiting the restaurant.
Don’t miss a trip to the fishing market in Negombo in the early morning and the place a little further down the road where the fish is being dried. Every tuk tuk-driver can take you there. Most of them want to take you on a tour to all the highlights of Negombo, like the ruins of the “Dutch Tower”.
Location:
Star Beach Hotel
133 Lewis Pl, Negombo, Sri Lanka
Tel: +94 312 222 606
Boek bijvoorbeeld via agoda.com
2. 3-day tour with driver
We hired a car with a driver for the next part of our journey from Negombo. Honestly, we thought that we could travel everywhere by train and bus, but there are no trains in this part of Sri Lanka and by bus we would have lost a lot of our valuable time. So a little luxury it was!
The costs for a car with driver, gas and 2 nights in a mid-class hotel/B&B was USD 279 (or 40.000 Roepie) for 2 persons. We really liked the hotels Prasad from travelerscar.com arranged for us! They did not put us in those huge mass-hotels, but cute small scaled guesthouses. I can really recommend this tour guide!
Tour-organisation:
Travelerscar.com
3. Ancient temples in Anuradhapura
The first stop with our driver was the old city of Anuradhapura. Our driver was new in the guide business and had never been there before, so we guided ourselves with the information from the travel guides (Lonely Planet and the Capitol Guide).
Anuradhapura is a sacred city and in the 3rd century B.C. the first kingdom of Sri Lanka was established here. The city is built around a cutting from the ‘tree of enlightenment’, the Buddha’s fig tree, brought there at the same time. Anuradhapura flourished for 1,300 years as the political and religious capital. The city was abandoned after an invasion in 993. Hidden away in dense jungle for many years, the splendid site, with its palaces, monasteries and monuments, was completely overgrown. Now this UNESCO World Heritage site is accessible again. The well preserved stupa’s are enormous!
Tip: You have to take your shoes off at all the sacred places, so bring your flipflops. Furthermore, it’s a very stretched out area, so take your time to be able to see all the highlights.
We continued to the beautiful and tranquil Indika Lake Resort. We had our own cottage here, including an outdoor shower with a waterfall (and a couple of frogs who also wanted to take a waterfall shower). The guesthouse is located next to a lake, you definitely should visit after your breakfast.
Location:
Indika Lake Resort @ Anuradhapura
Bandiyalankulama Road, Kurundankulama 50062, Sri Lanka
Tel: +94 77 731 6067
Website: www.indikalakeresort.lk
4. Elephants in Dambulla
The next morning we drove in the direction of Sigiriya. It was a very rainy day and almost resulted in not going on safari in Hurulu Eco Park. Fortunately it stopped raining at the end of the day and we could go searching for elephants! Actually, we encountered most elephants alongside the road driving back from the Park. The elephants are free to move between the parks to not interrupt their migration behavior, so keep your eyes open when driving!
We had a room at the Nice Place Hotel. The hotel definitely honored that name. Ask the reception if the guide will take you on a tour to the nature park that’s just behind the hotel. You can find beautiful birds and other animals here.
Locations:
Hurulu Eco Park
Trincomalee road, Habarana 50150, Sri Lanka
Tel: +94 77 494 0760
Website: www.lanka.comNice Place Hotel
Inamaluwa, Dambulla 21120, Sri Lanka
Tel: +94 662 286 050
Book via Booking.com
5. The most famous place in Sri Lanka: Sigiriya (Lion’s Rock)
We woke up before dawn to visit the most famous place in Sri Lanka: Lion’s Rock. It’s quite unbelievable when you see this huge hump in the landscape, but since the 3rd century B.C. the rocky plateau of Sigiriya has served as a monastery. In the second half of the 5th century king Kasyapa decided to construct his royal residence here. After his death Sigiriya again became a Buddhist monastery until it was abandoned in the 14th century.
The main entrance is located on the northern side of the rock. It was designed in the form of a huge stone lion, whose feet have survived up to today. Thanks to this lion the palace was named Sigiriya.
NB: At some places you can still see the very steep steps which people used in the old days to get on top of the plateau. Nowadays you can reach the top with a very solid staircase.
Referred by locals as the Eighth Wonder of the World, this ancient palace and fortress complex has significant archaeological importance and attracts thousands of tourists every year.
We did not stop a lot on our way to the top, resulting in the fact that we were the first to arrive at the top of Lion’s Rock! When we were downstairs again, it was still not crowded at the extensive network of fortifications, vast gardens, ponds, canals, alleys and fountains, because most of the tourists chose to climb Lion’s Rock first.
Tip: It is really worth it to visit Sigiriya as early as possible, because it gets crowded and the sun is blazing hot later on the day.
After Lion’s Rock we visited another UNESCO World Heritage site: Dambulla Cave Temple complex. Here you have to climb quite some steps (again). You can find a couple of carved out caves full of Buddha statues.
The weather was much better that day and we tried another elephant safari. Personally we did not like it very much, because it felt more like a witch hunt than a relaxed safari. We thought that the drivers came way too close to the animals and there were too many cars at the same spot. We asked our driver to take some distance to not disturb the elephants too much.
NB. Marthe and I are lucky because we already did a couple of safaris in Africa (read my blogs about Kenya and Swaziland here), so we had some experience and did not like this safari. If you have never done a safari, I can imagine you’d like to do the elephant safari, but please ask your driver to keep distance and not scare the elephants!
Location:
Sigirya Rock
Rock Front, Sigiriya 21120, Sri Lanka
Website: www.sigiriya.infoDambulla Cave Temple
Dambulla Town, Dambulla, Sri Lanka
Read rest of this fantastic round trip in Sri Lanka: Kandy, Adam’s Peak and Ella – Round Trip Sri Lanka (part II) and Leopard spotting, surfing and culture – Round trip Sri Lanka (part III). Other round trips you can already read about are my travels in Colombia, Israel, Bali, Chili and the Seychelles. For more safari trips, check out my blogs about Kenya and Swaziland.
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