Why Sri Lanka of all places? The hubs has been there for work a couple of years back, and he thought it would be a great experience for the girls too.

We could have seen more if we’d gone for 2 weeks, but because we were claiming airmiles, and the promo that we took required travelling to be done before April 1st, so we went for a week during the March holidays instead.

A lot of research and planning went in before the trip. We had to look at the attractions of the country, read up Tripadvisor forum, planned out our itinerary, contacted a couple of drivers/guides, checked with them if our itinerary is doable and got them to quote us, then booked the hotels etc etc.

We eventually decided to only cover 1/4 of Sri Lanka, so that we don’t have to rush through things, and then also confirmed to go with Asanka Deepal (email : knowslanka@yahoo.com), who’ll be our guide/driver for our trip there).

This was where we’d been during our week there.

Credit : Map from Google Map

These posts are to document the trip.

Part 1 : Day 1 & 2 Sigiriya
Part 2 : Day 3 Sigiriya to Happutale
Part 3 : Day 4 Happutale
Part 4 : Day 5 Saraii Village, Tissa Wewa, Kirinda, Yala Safari
Part 5 : Day 6 : Hambantota Salt Flats and The Southern Coast
Part 6 : Day 7 : Galle and surrounding area
Part 7 : Day 8 Appa Villa

Sri Lanka besides being blessed with lots of natural resources, beautiful scenery, abundance of wild life, it has beautiful and friendly people too. You will in the posts see that we took lots of photos of the friendly people and their wide / broad smiles.

We all thought that it’s a very beautiful country, and relatively cheap (if you don’t go for high end hotels and eat in restaurants meant for tourists).

If you are planning for a trip to Sri Lanka, based on our experience, take note of the below :

1) When planning your itinerary using Google Map, factor in 40% more travel time as the roads there are mainly trunk roads like the photo below, and cars usually go at about ~45km/hour.

Sri Lanka roads are mainly trunk roads, with lots of raintrees lining the roads. Just like how it was in Malaysia about 30 years ago. Very green, very scenic.

2) Bring along chocolates and pens, you never know whom you will meet on your trip. Little children from poorer areas may ask you for pens as gifts, and the women (tea pickers) may ask you for chocolates. We were not told, and didn’t prepare any, I would have love to distribute boxes of colour pencils, stickers or just pens to the friendly children we met.

3) If you are hiring a driver/guide, you may want to ask him if he has any hotels to recommend. They can get pretty good deal and they know where to stay best. Take their recommendation, check the review on Tripadvisor, then make your decisions/choices. Most of their recommendation comes with drivers’ accommodation, it’ll help and ensure your driver’s/guide’s accommodation is taken care as well.

We like Sri Lanka so much, we may go back again soon. Next time to the cultural triangle and then to the east coast.