|
Some brief facts:
"Some brief facts:
Situated off the southeast coast of India, Sri Lanka was colonised in 1505 by the Portuguese, who wanted the spice trade. The Dutch, bought in to oust out the Portuguese in 1658, liked the island so much they stayed. They in turn were then kicked out by the British in 1796 who just wanted to increase the red bits in atlases. Sri Lanka eventually gained independence in 1948.
The people are predominantly Buddhist and are extremely friendly and helpful.
Troubles between the Government and the Tamil Tigers have subsided-they are holding peace talks in Thailand this month. However it is still not advisable to travel to the north-west. There is still evidence of the problems up north-refugee camps still exist - machine gun posts, razor wire and armed patrols are still a feature. But it is safe to travel around at the moment; the armed guards always say hello to you.
Food is good, generally curry and rice, although there are western or Chinese restaurants around. I found the street food to be some of the best food in Sri Lanka. Follow medical advice, i.e. drink only bottled water, do not eat ice cream off the carts and you will be fine.
There are plenty of banks to change your traveller's cheques. There are also an increasing amount of ATM's if you run out of cash.
Currency is the rupee.
And remember the sun cream!
Three friends and I spent August in Sri Lanka. Although this is technically the start of the rainy season, don't let this deter you. In four weeks we saw rain only twice, the rest of the time it was glorious sunshine. Going off-season has its advantages; you can bargain over the price of your hotel for instance. We tried this and were successful on several occasions-generally the top of the range hotels will not bargain. The disadvantage going off-season is that you do not meet many other western tourists. I know there are those that say this is a distinct advantage, but having spent time in India, I found other tourists to be useful for recommendations for places to stay, eat and visit.
We travelled with Royal Jordanian Airlines; the tickets cost £515. The journey is split with a five-hour flight to Jordan and then six hours to Sri Lanka. In Jordan, we were put up in hotel overnight. If you are in transit, remember that your bags are likely to be booked straight through to your destination, so take a change of clothes, wash bag and whatever is important to you in your hand luggage. Having an afternoon to kill, we hired a driver to take us sightseeing around Amman, taking in the impressive Roman ruins, market and ending with the almost inevitable phrase ""I have a friend who owns a shop"". I really cannot say anything bad about Royal Jordanian, but then my view is tainted by the fact they upgraded me to first class on the way back (my friends had to content themselves with sitting in steerage).
The downside of being a transit passenger meant that it took nearly two days to get to our destination. Plus, the last time we saw our bags was at Heathrow, and they were last off the plane. We were still waiting at the carousel when everyone else had gone! So, here we were at Katanayake Airport, clutching the Lonely Planet (Rough Guide has yet to produce a guide), trying to look as if we knew what we were doing. We did not. The only idea we had was to get out of Colombo straight away (this on the advice of the Lonely Planet and friends as being an inhospitable place) and travel to the south coast to the village of Unawatuna. It was here that we were intending to plan our stay (we had not got pass the thinking stage). If like us you are travelling independently, Sri Lanka is small enough to be able to plan a trip even with just a day in advance.
Hiring a car and driver is the best way to get around Sri Lanka if you are only there for a short period of time. Unfortunately this is a point not emphasised by the Lonely Planet. You can hire a car through most of the hotels, although it is cheaper to approach the driver direct. During our stay, we hired a driver for eight days and gave him our itinerary. He charged us 11,000 rupees, which works out at about £75, which between four people is very little. You can of course do it cheaper by taking public transport-look out for the ""luxury"" bus, more like a rusting hulk on wheels without suspension guaranteed to give you an uncomfortable ride. But at about 70p a journey, they are cheap. Having a driver meant that we did not have to worry about getting to hotels, or the places we wanted to visit. The driver also helped us out with finding hotels. This was to his advantage as certain hotels gave drivers free lodging if they bought in tourists. If there is a specific hotel you want to go to, be prepared to put up a fight to get there.
From our experience, standards of hotels was generally very good, sometimes superb. There are places to suit all budgets; the cheapest we stayed in cost £10 for two people including breakfast and dinner, the most expensive being £53 for three people, room only-but what a room! (It was the Galle Face Hotel in Colombo dating from the 19th C. We had a small room, but that itself was as big as the floor space of my parent's house!). We chose our first hotel from the Lonely Planet. Although the description would not sell it to you, the hotel was good and also had a very helpful owner. This is not always the case. For those of you that have travelled independently, you get to realise with recommendations from guidebooks you have to allow for how up-to-date the book is (hotels or restaurants closing-this happened in Sri Lanka) standards slipping, prices going up. Descriptions also leave a lot to be desired. Your best course of action is to check out two or three hotels first to compare standards. If you say you will think about it, you may get a reduction in price.
Unawatuna has little to offer apart from a superb beach (the weather lends itself to lying on the silver sand and drinking cold beers), which is lined with restaurants and bars. This turned out to be a good place to start our holiday and forget about work (two weeks back and I am still getting to grips with my job!). It was over several bottles of the locally produced Lion Beer that we decided on our trip. There is plenty to do in Sri Lanka, and it all depends on your interests. For those that like beaches, these proliferate, all with silver sand (that I saw) fringed by palm trees. If you like history, there are plenty of ancient cities to visit, if animals are your thing, you are never far from a game reserve and if you are into walking, head for the hills or the national parks, the scenery is superb! We all decided on a couple of ancient cities, searching out some wild elephants, travelling up into the hills, with some lazing on the beach and some former colonial grandeur thrown in for good measure. As tourists, you will be charged about £10 for entry into game reserves, national parks and ancient sites, this is not too bad when you consider this is going towards the up-keep of everything. Donation boxes are conveniently situated should you feel you have not spent enough!
Game Reserves and National Parks
We visited one of each, Yala West Game Reserve on the Southwest coast and Horton Plains National Park, centrally situated in the hill country. To gain entry to a game reserve, as well as your entry fee you also need to hire a car, driver and guide. There is no walking allowed. We hired all three for about £25 for the whole day. Your guide will claim to be able to find every animal you wish to see. But the trouble with wild animals is that they are fickle and never appear on cue. It is almost definite you will see monkeys, water buffalo, crocodiles and any amount of birds, after a while though these all become passé and you crave more. Elephants appear depending on the season; we were there at the right time, coming across a herd feeding near the track. We were also lucky enough to see a leopard, although we smelt the dead boar that was its dinner first. You have to take everything you need for the day as the one thing lacking in these places is a shop. Your hotel can provide breakfast (you leave at 6.00am) and lunch. Remember to take plenty of water and sun cream-the sun is relentless out there. Also, be prepared to be thrown around in a suspensionless Land Drover for a day. It is uncomfortable.
Horton Plains is a different prospect. This you do on foot, walking out through the forest to World's End where there is a vertical 800m drop. If you are lucky, you get to see the sunrise. We were unlucky, the clouds were just coming in. The view is spectacular, but scary, well worth crawling to the edge for. Make sure you hold on tight as it can get very windy. You then follow the path (no signposts unfortunately) along through countryside reminiscent of the Scottish Highlands. This had once been used by the British as grazing for cattle, and is only now just getting back to what it used to be, if you are lucky (we were) you will catch sight of the bear monkeys that live up here. The whole walk takes about three hours. Remember to bring a jumper, you are 2,600 feet above sea level and it is cold.
Ancient Sites
We visited three; Anuradhapura and Polonnaruwa, both one-time capitals of Sri Lanka, and Sigiriya, a palace built on an 800 feet tall lump of rock. Anuradhapura and Polonnaruwa are fairly similar in makeup, both consisting of 2,000 year old ruins. They are both fairly spread out and require some form of transport to get around, whether a bike or like us a car. You can take a guide, but they did not seem to know any more than the Lonely Planet could give. Unfortunately, information available at the sites was lamentable. If you want a specific guidebook, go to a bookshop. To me they were fascinating giving you an idea of how much more advanced their civilisation was than ours 2,000 years ago. Be warned though, it is hot out there, and the sun makes it unbearable to walk barefoot- you have to remove your shoes to look around many of the ruins especially the temples. Beware the blisters on your feet (I was in agony).
Sigiria, on the other hand is one of the most terrifying things I have ever done. You approach through the ancient water gardens, which lulls you into a false sense of security. Once out of the gardens, you start climbing. The steps are rickety and rusting bolted (not always securely) to the sheer rock face. It is vertical, and you are constantly buffeted by the wind. In some places the handrail slants outwards, age rather than design! But it is worth it. The view is incredible, nothing but forest 800 feet below and as far as you can see. Although very little of the palace remains you do get the feeling this was an impressive sight. One thousand years ago they did not have stairs, just steps cut into the rock face itself and you wonder how they got the building materials up here in the first place! Let gravity take you down.
Beaches
Because of the problems experienced in Sri Lanka in recent years between the Tamil Tigers and the Government tourism in the north has been non-existent, and this is reflected in the Lonely Planet, which contains little information on the region. What it does say though is that the beaches are superb, so we decided to try one out, up near a village called Nilaveli, on the north-east coast. The guidebook was not wrong - the beach went on for miles. The trouble was, there was no shade and it was 95 degrees! So we did what most of the western tourists did, and booked in to the best hotel (£18 for two plus breakfast and dinner). We spent a week, by the pool, near the bar.
Empire
Nuwara Eliya is a strange place-6,000 feet up, it was the one time refuge for the colonials from the summer heat. Now, it has the appearance of being full of ruffians. Remember the Slaughtered Lamb in ""American Werewolf in London""? You get the same reaction walking into the Lion Pub! It is, however home to the Hill Club, built in the 19th C, as a refuge for the rich. For £4 you can become a member for the night, and go there for dinner. Even now it is still decorated like an English manor, complete with silver cups awarded at flower shows in the '30s. Your every movement is followed by the eyes of animals unfortunate enough to get shot, and now stuffed and mounted on the walls. They insist you dress smartly (no trainers) and a jacket and tie are obligatory. I had a shirt and trousers made for the total of £7. The Hill Club has a supply of jackets and ties from which you can choose. I wept with laughter when presented with a blue-grey velour jacket. But it was good, although my food (as a vegetarian) was strange for the location, being fried rice. We ended the evening in the leather armchairs of the reading room, drinking port.
Other Things
Kandy is worth a visit. It is a very calm town, very easy to get around. It is most famous for the Temple of the Tooth, which houses the tooth of Buddha. You can visit in the evening to see the ceremony of opening the casket containing the tooth. There is also a dreadful museum, in which you may feel to be more interesting than the exhibits due to the natural curiosity of the Sri Lankans. There are plenty of really good restaurants here serving Sri Lankan and Indian food and several Chinese restaurants. While we were there KFC opened yet another outlet. Be warned though, for some reason most things close at 8.00pm so that last pint before you go to bed should really be in your hotel bar! At dusk we stood on the hotel verandah and watched as hundreds of bats flew overhead.
An hours drive away is the elephant orphanage, where they train elephants to work. Here, for £2 (they do also show you the donation boxes on the way out) you can watch baby elephants be fed, and see fifty elephants walked down the street to the river to be washed. Unfortunately, baby elephants are what the public wants, and the mahouts pull them away from the protection of their mothers oblivious to the stress they are causing.
If you are in the hills, try a train journey. We took a train from Nuwara Eliya to Kandy-it took four hours, on a hard seat with my head out the window because of the smell from the toilet, but the scenery made it worth while! And it only cost about 50p! There is also a constant stream of vendors selling food (beats curly BR sandwiches).
Lastly, Colombo is worth a visit, in spite of advice. For a start there was the superb hotel, plus there are very good restaurants. If you are keen on replacing your wardrobe there are shopping malls full of clothes with familiar labels but at a fraction of the price. It is worth wandering round the old market - you can buy anything here from vegetables to a hand made suit.
I would recommend Sri Lanka to anyone. For those that have been to India, this is a less manic and calmer place to visit, though it is slightly more expensive. It is easy to travel around, and small enough to see much of it in a short time. And if you do get lost, there is always someone around to help you out. Which is just as well as there are few signposts.
And the frog? One of the hotels up north had, as I found out on a late night visit to the bathroom, a resident frog that lived in the toilet pan. When I lifted the lid he just sat there staring up at me. It must have been good there, because four of his friends came over and stayed.
|
