My very own guide to Sri Lanka or what to do in a vegetarian hotel!

     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.

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.

Second class Ella-Badulla train line

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.

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!

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 :(

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: 

Temple in Badulla

House in Nuwara Eliya

Hindu temple in Galle

Cave temple or Golden temple in Dambulla

Church in Galle

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 :)

Tea plantations in Nuwara Eliya

Tea plantations

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.

Nis or how they do it in Serbia

Another crazy idea of mine - a short weekend in Serbia... Belgrade is too far from Sofia so decided to go to Nis which is 3 to 4 hours by bus depending on the time on the border. Matpu 96 is the only company that provides transport from Sofia to Serbia, not really my favourite as the buses are not the best and wifi never works. But again is the only one... Buses from Sofia live at 7.30 am and 4 pm and from Nis to Sofia at 3pm.

Nis is not really a very touristic place though they pride themselves on some attractions and monuments. One of them is the Skull Tower, located at the end of the city. The ticket costs 150 Serbian dinars (1€ is 115 dinars as of June 2014) but to be honest it is possible to get inside without tickets as the person at the gate did not even check them but just waved at us to go inside.

Inside this little church the remains of the Skull Tower (Cele Kula) which originally contained 952 skulls of Serbs killed in a battle near Nis but today there are only 58 skulls.

Another place worth a visit is the Nis Fortress on the bank of Nishava river with a lovely park inside.

Or if the weather is too hot to stay in the city, do not hesitate to visit Niska Banja, a suburbian town 5 km from Nis. A great shady park with some nice views over the hills and the city. There is a local bus number 1 which goes to Niska Banja from the center of Nis, it takes about 20 minutes to get there. The ticket is 80 dinars from the city center or 60 dinars from the Skull Tower.

This is something that I found really surprising, the cost of public transportation is relatively high compared to the price of food. And Serbian food is amazing and is absolutely worth the detour. For a sweet tooth try sladka pitka with cherry jam (home-made one), sort of a crêpe (but the dough is dry) with lots of cherry jam inside and some icing sugar. Is delicious and very filling (for 60 dinars only)!

And of course, the Serbian grill: 300 gr of pure meat grilled in front of you and put in a soft grilled bread accompanied by your choice of veggies and sauces (for those who love spicy, try home-made lutenitsa sauce). You can find all varieties of grilled meat: pork stuffed with cheese escalope made from ground pork (Gurmanska), ground pork mixed with veggies, chicken fillets, pieces of chicken fillets wrapped in bacon and all of them are yummy. The price for this type of sandwich goes from 170 to 270 dinars depending on the type of meat and the chain or stall. But frankly one sandwich is enough to fill you for at least half of the day or even the whole day. So if you are a food lover, do not miss on that!

There are of course other types of food available, like pizza or salads (Bulgarian shopska salad is very popular here too).

If you prefer a salty breakfast, try Mekeke - a huge fried bagette (30 dinars) to eat with a yourgurt.

Yes, food is amazingly cheap in Serbia as well as drinks in cafés. A cappucino is 100 dinars, Coke or Fanta is around 120 dinars and a beer is between 120 and 200 dinars but of course, cheaper in groceries.

Amazing thing in Nis is their ad system. Ads are attached to the tree and not just one tree but all the trees! It must definitely work as all the trees in the city are covered with ads :)

Yes, that's how they do it!

Another thing you should know if you are planning to travel to Nis, do it with your car if you have a possibility. Many of the places that might be interesting are outside Nis. I really wanted to see Vronksi Mausoleum inside the Holy Trinity church but it is located outside Nis... reachable with a bus though (as we were told at the hotel) but we didn't make it but I really hope you will!

Melnik, wine capital of Bulgaria

I'm quite ashamed of myself, I spent almost 2 weeks in Bulgaria and I only visit 2 places there. I wish I could stay longer in this lovely country. There are places that are all about tourist attractions, monuments, museums, sightseeing... And there are others with a soul so deep that you lose yourself in it. I think that this can be applied to the whole county in general but one place that touched my soul was Melnik. The trip there from Sofia takes about 4 hours, you change buses in Sandanski and from there to Melnik you get a small dusty minibus... so dusty that I was really happy it was only a 30 min ride and a shower is a must after. But when I got off in this tiny village of Melnik surrounded by pyramid mountains with a flat grassy top, I realised that was the place for me.

 There is only one street in Melnik, Melnik street which is hardly 1 km long. The air is fresh, the lanscape is beautiful, very few tourists, relaxed people. We stayed in Bolyarka hotel that we loved... A balcony, a fireplace and a bathtub... What not to love! They also have a hamman there. 

A short (15 min) hike to enjoy the view over the town...

Melnik is the wine capital of Bulgaria.  Surrounded by wineyards, every restaurant and possibly every  house in town makes its own wine. Young wine is sold everywhere in plastic bottles and costs around 3.6 lev per liter. But is still delicious and no headache the next day no matter how much you drink. In restaurants you can try a better quality wine which goes perfectly with home made food such as typical bulgarian sausage accompanied by Lutenitsa (typical spicy sauce) or again with the famous Shopska salad. If you want

some bread which you have to order on the side in Bulgaria,  ask to grill it. They add some slightly spicy sauce on the top, it's yummy.

You will also find a variety of home made jams, I really loved the plum one. Melnik is particularly famous for

its white jam but sadly I haven't tried it. May be you will :)

Yesterday was a long and a bit tiring day and at the end of it different thoughts were haunting my brain. 

I started talking with my boyfriend about passions. So it brought me to think about how much you are willing to give up if you really love something or someone for that matter. I do not knowif saying something or someone is appropriate as loving someone (like a mother loves her child) is something sostrong that people sacrifice their lives without a second thought. 

So let's talk about this "something" that I think everyone has in his or her life. It doesn't really matter what it is, it can be money, jewelry, cars or sport,board games, cooking. It is something you seize to exist without.

In my case, I was speaking about travelling.

Yes, I love travel, it is my passion that I discovered several years ago and cannot give it up. It's like a drug...

Oh, it reminds my of a conversation I had once... This guy told me that he was very passionate about online gamesand I asked why (for me it's a valid question as I was never attracted to it but really curious to know whatpeople find about it). He said that life online is so intense and exciting that the minute you pull out of 

it and get back to the reality, you feel like the whole world has stopped. Everything is so still, nothing 

moves, you feel paralized and deprived of any feeling.

This is exactly the way I feel about travelling. The minute I stop, I feel that I am being held inside this bubble  where life has frozen and time has stopped still. I sometimes feel that I need it like oxygen and it is hard to stay in one place or settle down for that matter. The second I do, my heart keeps calling me to go and see something else I have not seen on this earth yet.

But as much as I am passionate about it I managed to meet many other people who seem to love it much much more, immesurably.

All these people who quit their jobs and "normal" life (at least this concept of normality that is accepted in our society) and families and went thousands of miles away to brade dreadlocks on the beaches or make bracelets or work as a bar-tender on a beach in Cambodia. They don't seem to care about if they have enough money to buy food tomorrow or sometimes a place to sleep for the night but they always find a way. Many go through some rough times but they still persevere, they don't resign and go back to their parents crying for help, they are not complaining that life has been hard of them (well, may be some do, but most of the people I happened to meet, don't). So this brings me back to my initial question of how much people are willing to give up for something they truly love.

How I discovered Bulgaria

There places that attract us, we have this burning desire to visit them for weeks, months, sometimes years... Others, somehow, escape our attention and even passionate travellers overlook them.

Bulgaria was that country for me. 
In a few years of travelling, not even once had I the idea to visit Bulgaria. I was certainly thinking about other Balkan destinations, dreaming about beautiful landscapes of Monenegro, breathtaking views of Croatian coast or amazing islands like Santorini.

But it all started when I met this Bulgarian person in Barcelona, just for a day, but his invitation to visit Bulgaria changed it all. I had never done this before but for some reason decided to go and see this country I was never even curious about...

Sofia turned out to be a surprising combination between Europe and Russia (I am of Russian origin myself). I think only in Bulgaria it's possible to take an old Ikarus (Soviet Union bus or trolley still used as public transportation in Sofia) to go enjoy your tall decaf Moka at Starbucks café close to Sofia University.

Bulgaria is definitely a paradise for food lovers. I think I gained at least 4 kg in my two weeks' trip and I'm not putting on weight easily (but I guess I'm a foodie :)).

Food is everywhere and it's almost always good and very cheap. Favourite Bulgarian breakfast is a banitsa or Баница in Bulgarian (flaky pastry filled with ham - shunka, white cheese - sirene or yellow cheese - kashkaval). Not to forget Bulgarian sour milk (kiselo mlyako or ayran - sort of a sour drinking yourgurt that no Bulgarian can live without!

People drink it everywhere and all the time... According to Bulgarians, it goes well with every type of food.

My friend even told me that it goes perfectly with a baklawa (this oriental dessert with nuts and honey)... Haven't tried it myself but I trust my friend, he is a true Bulgarian! Ayaran and kiselo mlyako are considered national drinks so you should definitely try them (and they have a miraculous ability to cure a hangover...)

Eating out is very popular in Bulgaria, a banitsa from a local bakery (with an Ayran of course) on the way to work, a meaty sandwich or a huge slice of pizza in the park for lunch break and some local food in a biraria (beer café) or some local fast food in the evening. 

Bulgarian currency is lev, 1 euros equals 1.95 lev as for April 2014.

Slice of pizza (enough for lunch) is around 2 lev, banitsa is around 1-1.5 lev, drinking yougurt is about 1 lv. 
Many supermarkets have hot food stalls with freshly prepared variety of salads, grilled meat and sausages, side dishes etc. 

Food is cooked on the spot and sold during the day and it is actually tasty. So you can get a kebabche (a small grilled ground meat sausage) for 0,30 to 0,50 lev per piece, different

types of small grilled sausages for the same price, bigger sausages for around 1 lev. They are all grilled there at the supermarket and always fresh.

As a side dishe, try pecheni kartofel (baked potatos), sirene po-shopski (baked cheese Shopski style), various salads etc. The price for the dishes is around 6 lev per kilo. So it's easy to get a nice cooked meal for a about 4 lev from the supermarket. Why bother cooking at home?!
Together with the food stand you usually have a bakery with bread baked in the day and various types of pastries from around 0,80 lev to 2 lev. 

Don't forget to try Shopska salad, perhaps the most famous salad in Bulgaria. It resembles Greek salad (all Bulgarian people please forgive me, I know you don't like this comparison that much), with cucumbers, tomatoes, oignons, some bell peppers and of course white bulgarian cheese - sirene (feta-style).

Cheese in Bulgaria is delicious, don't miss it!

Good places to try in Sofia if you want to eat out is  Biraria Halbite, their local beer Stolichno Weiss is amazing and they have a great selection of good international beer for reasonable prices. They also offer a vast variety of dishes mostly local ones for about 5-6 lev per dish. It is very tasty and filling. 

A must try is a fast food chain Mimas with doners, kebabs and falafels. Their falafels are to die for, definitely the best ones I ever tried in my life! Prices are between 3-4 lev per sandwich and 0,30 lev per falafel. So again the value for money is very good. Both Halbite and Mimas have several location around the city and all are very popular with locals, which means food is fresh!

For Starbucks addicts, don't miss it in Sofia, the cheapest Starbucks I've ever seen. 3,90 lev for a tall Moka, it's hard to resist. 

They also have these little kiosks with snacks such as nuts and dried fruits, baked corn (pecheni tsarevitsa), sunflower seeds etc; very cheap and very healthy:)
Ok, it feels like all i'm talking about is food but this trip definitely turned for me into food and beverage tasting.

Apart from that, Bulgarian people are very nice and welcoming, no fake smiles but very helpful if you need and quite talkative. I always had someone trying to talk to me when I used public transport there and it's a shame I don't speak Bulgarian. 

Bulgarians on the other side are really good at languages, many people under 45 speak English (and not only) and very well I should say. No matter if it's a gas station, a local store or a park...

Another surprising thing about Sofia, there are many sex shops there, I don't really know why but for some reason I always managed to see a sign for a sexshop everywhere in the city.

My bulgarian friend told me it's because they love sex in Bulgaria and I tend to believe it's true.

But I especially love this one...

I don't know if everything is about sex in Bulgaria but certainly many of them are. This is the menu in one of the park cafés and "erotichen banan" is apparently the local version of Banana split :)

Now a few words about Sofia tourist attractions... As I mentioned before, there is a mix between the former Soviet Union style buildings, modern ones, orthodox and catholic churches and mosques. Visit Serdika  that hosts a mosque, a church and a sinagogue only a few meters from each other.

On the same square you will find the famous warm water springs where local people come

to fill their bottles with this spring water. 

Note though that tap water is totally drinkable in Bulgaria but bottled water is also available and very affordable.

There are of course many other tourist attractions in Sofia that deserve our fullest attention (like the famous Alexander Nevski Cathedral)

but I'm gonna stop here for now and continue with my amazing trip to the wine capital of Bulgaria, a lovely town of Melnik.

Cheers everybody