1. Vegetarian, non-vegetarian or muslim hotel vs inn or guesthouse.
Yeap, guys, you got me right! They have a huge variety of hotels in Sri Lanka.... Imagine my surprise seeing
a sign for a vegetarian hotel?! and then down the street - for a non-vegetarian one. And they have Muslim hotels too.
But hotel in Sri Lanka mainly means a place to eat, a café.. So if you are looking for food, then
a hotel is definitely what you need. But if searching for a place to sleep, head to an "inn" or a "guesthouse".
Though sometimes especially in popular touristy places, you might also find a hotel that offers rooms to stay.
2. Food.
Food in Sri Lanka is good and always fresh and SPICY! (for western palate) though lacks variety to my taste. There is not much difference between the food you find in the north and the south or the west of the country.
If you are not into spicy food, try lamprais, a delicately spiced rice dish served with meat, fried eggplants and caramelized onions.
Certain types of food come at certain time of the day. For example, you will most likely find egg roties (pancakes with an egg inside) only in the morning and stringhoppers are usually served for breakfast.
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| Typical Sri Lankan breakfast choices |
On the other hand, kothu roti (the same pancake but plain one chopped and fried with veggies)
is available after 5 pm.
A typical lunch menu is boiled rice with a set of curries and a papadam. The lunch menu is usually very cheap and filling and fresh. Rice and curries are usually sold out before 2 pm that's when lunch time ends :)
If you are craving for western food, you best bet is a city or town popular with tourists. There you can find
almost everything you can want. Though sometimes a choice of food can be influenced by local traditions :)
3. Drinks.
Which is the most popular drink in Sri Lanka?... Tea, of course! Mainly black Ceylon one but always
of good quality!
It makes sense when you see tea plantations stretching out for kilometers and kilometers.
Locals mostly drink black tea in the morning so finding good coffee especially in non-touristy areas can be a challenge. Just remember if you drink black coffee like I do, say "Coffee no milk no sugar"! coz if you ask for a coffee without milk, you will certainly get a sweet one and the opposite!
But of course, in big cities there are many westernized places offering good espresso or capuccino or iced mocha:)
Beer is very popular with locals in Sri Lanka and can only be bought in Liquor shops. So don't head to the nearest supermarket hoping to find a bottle of spirits there. Check out for a liquor shop (usually at least one if it's a small town or several if it's a city or a touristy place). Just ask locals and they will be more than happy to direct you to the nearest Liquor store/Wine store or the closest bar to get a bottle for take-away.
Now remember, liquor stores are usually open between 9am and 8 or 9pm (and can be well hidden) so do not wait till to late to go there.
Also, if you get there late in the evening they might run out of cold beer (if you are lucky and there is a fridge :))! In this case, the best remaining option is a bar (usually local one). There are very few bars selling alcohol (in small towns they are usually 1 or 2 as getting alcohol license is very hard in Sri Lanka) and the price in the bar is twice as high than in a liquor store but you will most likely find a cold beer there.
If you are in a big or touristy place, your options are much better. Lots of fancy restaurants and pubs offer a good selection of spirits but be prepare to pay the price for it (the price would be the same as in a restaurant in Europe).
Don't miss fresh fruit juices widely available everywhere or a king coconut which tastes like a young coconut
but is of orange colour.
4. Travelling around.
Trains and buses are largely available in Sri Lanka to travel between the cities or provinces.Buses are more frequent than trains but sometimes train might be faster depending on the destinations.
Inside the trains, there usually are 3rd class and 2nd class tickets both very cheap, 2nd class having more comfortable seats and fans on the ceiling.
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| Second class Ella-Badulla train line |
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| Train tickets' prices from Badulla as of July-August 2014 |
Usually there is no air-con in the trains except 3 lines of Rajadhani express but the prices are considerably higher, seats have to be booked in advance and no refund is possible. In general, if you wanna book a seat on a train in Sri Lanka you have to pay a booking fee (which is usually several times higher than the price of the ticket itself).
A train line between Ella and Badulla (known for beautiful views) offers observation cabin tickets (10 times more expensive than 2nd class) but still no air-con.
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| Train from Ella to Badulla offering stunning views |
So if you want to travel by train check the timetable in advance as in many cases you might have only 3-4 trains a day going to your destination!
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| Timetable between Badulla and Colombo |
Trains can be very crowded or sometimes empty depending on the time of day or week you are travelling or line or destination. So bear in mind that it is possible that you will spend your journey standing though it only happened to me once going from Mount Lavinia to the south?!
Buses are very frequent in Sri Lanka and have 3 different types:
- luxury buses - usually private minibuses or minivans with nice music, comfortable enough seats and Air-con!!! They usually go fromthe departing point to the destination with very few stops. They are also less frequent and more expensive than other types of busesand only run between big cities or on popular destinations (not necessarily touristy ones as many local people also use them).
- semi-luxury buses - private buses (looking more like public transportation buses) with very loud music and some times a lazer show in the front :) and relatively comfy seats (no air-con of course) but windows are widely open so you get the air and the dust too :) So if you are not into loud sri lankan music during a 5-6 hr journey you should definitely consider choosing a luxury one instead. Inside the bus, there are 2 rows of seats - one of 2 seats and one of 3 seats. Seats are quite narrow and cannot be comfortable especially if you are a fairly large person. These buses is of hop on-hop off type. They run between provinces sometimes from North to South but will stop quite often, usually every 5-10 minutes :) As there are bus stops all along the way so be ready for this! Check it out!
- ordinary buses - governmental run buses, usually of red colour for longer destinations, often very used ones from inside and outside :). No music or lazer show here, oouf :) but seats are less comfy than in semi-luxury. They have the same seat disposition as the semi-luxury.
Now, in the beginning I used to choose semi-luxury one over the ordinary one (when I had a choice of course as luxury was not available at all) but then my friend Julian from Colombo told me a trick: semi-luxury buses are private ones so the salary of the driver and the conductor (coz you always have one) are commission based. So they tend to stop way more often to get as many people as they can. On the opposite, government offer fixed salaries for drivers and conductors on ordinary service buses. So they do not really care how many people they will get onboard.
So travelling with ordinary ones might be less comfortable (though depends if you are a music fan) but faster
and cheaper!
Another interesting option is sharing a taxi or a van but it only works between touristy destinations! I got really lucky in Ella as I stumbled upon a post on Tripadvisor from a girl offering to share a van from Ella to Arugam Bay. So not only the girl turned out to be staying at the same hotel as I was but we also found several more people and got a nice comfy and quick ride for a very cheap price!
A small point about the roads: arriving in the south of the country I was pleasantly surprised to see a nice smooth highway there. So I was expecting the same in the other parts but noooo! Road from Dambulla to Colombo, for instance, was in a very poor condition with construction works at several points. So a 120-140 km ride turned into an almost 7 hour-trip!
5. Wildlife.
Sri Lanka has an amazing wild life: monkeys and peacocks are as common as dogs and mosquitoes but if you are lucky you can see a wild elephant somewhere along the road. I did saw one on my way from Tissa to Ella but did not have time to take a pic :(
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| Monkeys on the road from Ella to Arugam Bay |
6. Women travelling alone.
Now this is a very disputable chapter and it depends a lot on your personal experience and your common sense. I would say it is completely safe to travel alone in Sri Lanka as I didn't feel less safe than in Thailand or Cambodia or USA or Europe for that matter. True, I only travelled alone for my last 6 days in Sri Lanka but not once I felt unsafe, noone bothered me even in small towns with almost no tourists like Hambantota (predominanty muslim town). I spent 1 day and night there and only got very positive impressions and experience. But when travelling alone, use your common sense. Especially, bear in mind that in Asia or Africa western people are really stand out in the crowd so you are spotted very quickly. So avoid walking in deserted street at night or do not give your phone number to strangers even if they are nice (can just have a friendly talk or laugh in a public place and say that your sim card is not working here :) or be extra cautious when people are approaching you to give you an advice or else. Well, actually in most cases people are really willing to help you BUT!if you are a girl and do not have much experience travelling alone then be very cautious. When you are used to travel on your own, it will be easier for you to discern people and their intentions and adapt your behaviour accordingly. But if you are a novice and this works for every country, common sense is your best friend! Not only bad experience will ruin your trip or perception of the country but you will also share your experience with others who will think that it is dangerous to travel alone in this or that place. That is how prejudice is sometimes born :)
7. Architectural diversity.
Now, one thing I loved about Sri Lanka is the amazing diversity of architecture styles.
It is aslo due to English, Dutch and Portugal influence they experienced but I personally found it impressive. Check it out for yourself:
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| Temple in Badulla |
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| House in Nuwara Eliya |
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| Hindu temple in Galle |
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| Cave temple or Golden temple in Dambulla |
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| Church in Galle |
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| Mosque in Galle |
8. Natural beauty.
Sri Lanka also offers a beautiful landscapes and sometimes a very unexpected climate. So if you are going, let's say, from Colombo to Nuwara Eliya, don't forget a sweater and preferably a raincoat. In Colombo it might be +32°C and sunny and in Nuwara most likely around +20°C with rain and wind. So be prepared and at least check the weather forecast in advance :)
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| Tea plantations in Nuwara Eliya |
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| Tea plantations |
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| Beach in Hikkaduwa |
Thank you very much for reading and hope you enjoyed it!
And special thank you to Chris DeBug for some of the pictures in this articles.
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