Explore explore explore. Until there's nothing more: TB: Sri Lanka

Hej, Hi and Hello.

A small trip report of early 2015 as Bene and I quite spontaneously decided to do a 4 weeks on Sri Lanka during the holidays. Sri Lanka is called the tear of India and is a relatively small island, about the size of Bavaria, in the Indian Ocean. Why Sri Lanka? Sri Lanka is a very backpacker friendly country where four weeks’ holidays are affordable for us poor students ;)

We had a rough plan and wanted to avoid the "tourist" cities and relax and travel along the south-west coast. Our plan was like that Colombo-Nuwara Eliya-Tangalle-Mirissa / Weligama Unawatuna and back towards Colombo.

Having arrived after a 14 hours’ flight in Colombo, we knocked over our plan to spend a night in Colombo quickly (the city was at first glance not too inviting ... honestly also not at a second glance) So we ate a quick bite and then we took the train to Nuwara Eliya, which is a very nice train route towards the highlands to Nanu Oya of about 7 hours. Most of the time was nevertheless spent sleeping due to the long travel, however we enjoyed some nice views in our sleepwalking-state (tea plantations and wide open spaces)

Train to Nuware Eliya

We were initially quite in Travel fever and booked the first hotel together with a trip to Horton Plains National Park for the next day.

We did a 10 km trek to the World's End. Early the next morning we took the direction to Horton Plains and hurried up so that we could arrive before a group of Asians with their Selfie sticks at the ready, which has also worked quite well ...

Horton Plains Hike

World's End

Don't go chasing waterfalls

Anyone knows what animal that is?

Highest railyway station (Pattipola 1892m)

From Nuware Eliya we continued by train uphill direction Ella a small village from which you can do several hikes. Here we have also made the first acquaintance with the Singhalese Kitchen (highly recommended). The next day we climbed Ella Rock and because we have been walking quite fast we took the Adam’s Peak the same day as well.

Hike on the rail

Ella Rock

From Ella went with a sleek bus winding roads towards Tangalle, a rather sleepy fishing village where we supported the local fishermen and enjoyed the first time at the sea.

Waiting for the bsu

From there we went on to Mirissa, for people spending their Honey-Moon holidays and couples a really cool city... Nevertheless, Bene and I had some fun there and met Lukas who travelled the next 2.5 weeks together with us.

In Mirissa we actually spent a lot of time on the beach, enjoyed some surfing and the good food together with one or another beach party.

The next stop was Unawatuna where we visited the town of Galle located in the south-west. The Galle Fort and Old City are World Cultural Heritages, but most of us just enjoyed the scooters in the Singhalese traffic.

Galle

One of the water sports Mecca of Sri Lanka - Hikkaduwa was our next stop where we wanted to continue surfing, but the waves haven’t been beginner friendly and we mainly swallowed water, or spent our time on the beach relaxing.

After Hikkaduwa we had one more stop in Negombo before our departure back to Germany

A few things we did which I, however, can no longer assign was whale-watching, which was very impressive at the moment, but afterwards questionable. Since about 10 boats boat at the same time and as soon as a whale is discovered by a scout on the ship all the boats converge the whale and it is like a bit of a hunt. In addition, the boats were not the most stable, when a whale was spotted on the port side, all passengers have made their way to the side and the skipper had his troubles to keep the ship in a straight position.

Turtle watching is a lot more relaxed, you get a snorkel and mask and can go swimming together with turtles.

Overall, Sri Lanka is a really recommended destination for all ages. The north and the region around Kandy have certainly a lot to see, but we were not too interested in temple-runs and co. The Singhalese are super friendly, certainly there are the classic rip-offs in the tuk-tuk. The hotels / Home-Stays and the food are affordable with some pocket money and one can thus make some memorable experiences, but here pictures paint a thousand words ...