Dear Friends, Me with all my sisters alone are planning to go for a trip to Srilanka from Mar 18 to 24. Since this is a only ladies trip, we want to preplan our tour itinary. Suggesions about places, hotels, shopping are invited from friends who already visited Srilanka. Thank you. ganges
There's so much 2 see. Pinewela elephant orphanage, Galle fort, Yala national park,kandy botanical garden,Kandy Thalatha maliga,Dehiwela zoo,Nuwerelia (There are lot of water falls & tea plantation in kandy and newera Eliya),Sinharaja forest,Hikkaduva,Negembo ( lot of gud beaches) Historical places-Anurajapura,polanaruwa,dambulla,sigiriya I prefer to stay in wellawatte colombo-06,Bambalapititycolombo -4, or colpity colombo 3 area. places to shop in colombo-House of fashion,odel,Majestic city,No limit etc
Hi ganges you definitely go to kandy ,nuvarelia and zihiriya.. wonderful tourist places in srilanka. kuma
Dear Ganges We had been to Srilanka last year. Please check in at Taj Samudra Colombo, then see the city. It has lot of historic and monumental buildings, cricket club, beaches, a nice temple etc. Nothing much. Most of the items are from India only and bread / chips / jam etc are very very expensive. If your package does not include break fast / dinner then you may carry some snacks with you. Next day you can go to Kandy.... on the way you can visit the Elephant orphanage, Kandy Ayurvedic resort, lunch at Kandy down town and check in at a hotel there. Kandy has some good hotels. Its a beautiful place. You can visit in the evening the Buddha temple which has the original Buddha tooch relic. But before that you can visit the Kandy folk theatre adjacent to the temple and see some nice dance at 5:30 show or something and proceed to the temple. The templs is very big and lots of time of wait needed as the main temple closes after few minutes of darshan and again opens. So you hv to wait in the cue. Have dinner and rest. Next day you can go to Nuwaraliye....... On the way you can vist a huge Anjaneya temple. They close at 12:30PM, so try to reach before or only on your return. Then visit Tea garden, tea factory, free tea is offered and buy some Ceylon Tea and proceed to Nuwaraliya city. If you have time you can ask the guide to take you to the Sita Temple where Sita was kept captive by Ravana. But the temple is about 1 hour drive in the mountaineous region, so depends on weather they close earlier. Pls. check. Else you may visit the beautiful city and the shopping area of Nuwaraliya, have dinner and rest. Next day morning, visit Gayatri Devi temple where all God/Goddess are there including Sage Viswamitra. You can offer your prayers etc. and proceed to Sita temple. Its a beautiful temple where Sita was captivated under the Ashoka tree in the Ashoka vanam, with the huge foot prints of Anjaneya etc. are there, with a stream of water where Sita took bath etc. Also you can visit the botanical garden and return to Kandy and visit Dambulla cave temple / Sirigaya or Bentota which has beaches. Nuwaraliye has some beautiful gardens and you can find fresh fruits and vegetables on the roadside everywhere. Try the beautiful fresh carrots etc. Also on your landing at Colombo, check with your guide and ask if you can visit Trincomalee and return before proceeding to Kandy etc. We did not have time so we cud not visit. But we heard that Trincomalee has some beautiful tourist sites to visit. Since you have 6 days, may be you can cover. Finding vegetarian food is tough in Srilanka. Pls. book a car with a guide who can speak english, lankan and if possible tamil too. Also check if the hotels can offer break fast or book with breakfast. All the historic places, there is an entrance fee. For non-europeans it is about Lankan Rs.1,200~1500.00. Srilanka is a very nice place, but similar to Kerala only but very clean also. You can find lots of coconuts, jackfruits etc. Good luck and enjoy. Shanti
dear Friend, It is nice to see your quick response. The elephant orphanage sounds nice. I will sure visit house of fashion. and the historical places you mentioned. thanks dear. ganges
Yes Kuma. We are landing at Colombo and surely Kandy is in our list. We will add on Nuwura and Sigiriya too. thanks. ganges
Dear Shanti, It was really a very informative reply. Our main purpose for this visit is Kataragama ( kathirgamam muruga temple). Some ramayana sites, one or two eashwarams ( shiva temples ) and some recreation types. So ofcourse we will see nuwura eliya, kataragama, Dambulla, Kandy and Sigiriya. Since one of the Eashwaram ( Koneswaram ) is at triconmale, we love to visit that place too. Information about the food there will deffinitely help us because we are strict vegs. Deffinitely we will pack something. I hope we will get rice and curd atleast. Did you visit any of the northern province area there. Is it okay to visit Jafna? We are heading from Chennai and will land first at Colombo. I hope we can cover all these within six days. thank you for the very descriptive reply dear. ganges
Dear Ganges Its a nice idea to visit the Siva kshethrams. We did not go to Jaffna or Trincomalee. We did not have time as our trip was only for 4 days. Trincomalee is in the east coast of Srilanka. It takes about 7~8 hours from Colombo by Car. Kataragama lies 280 kms south east of Colombo, the capital of Srilanka.[FONT=Arial,Helvetica,Verdana] [/FONT]Kandy, Nuwareliya etc are in the Central province. Jaffna is north east coast. I dont think you can cover all these places within 6 days considering the distance. There is an airport in Trincomalee, but otherwise travel is by car / bus only. The speed limit upto 75kph, its a long journey to cover the distance. Travel time will consume your day to reach places like 6~8 hours. Hence I would advise you on the day of landing, please engage a taxi with a guide and explain to him the choice of places that you wish to visit and ask how you can route it conveniently. Because all the places are in different directions, no need to spend time on backwards visit. So make a round trip and reach back Colombo accordingly. Finish n come back and give your feed back. Also pls. write if you have any queries. We engaged a car with a driver who is also a guide. The guides are given free entry in all the historical places and free stay in hotels. Its not possible to be on your own in Lanka as the travel has to be in car only. Trains are convenient, but you have to may be walk a long from the station to the tourist spot. Kandy is a hilly area with steep and narrow roads and an efficient driver only can take you and guide you. Best Regards Shanti
dear shanti, Our plan has changed and we are leaving for Srilanka on 31 st early hours. we made it as a 9 days trip. We heard that we can go to jaffna also so it is a round trip there. As you said we booked the taxi driver cum guide and booked in the hotels in all the places we are going. Hope everything will be fine and we will enjoy ourtrip. We found one family in Colombo in case of any emergency. Will come back on 8th and surely share my experience with you all. Thanks every body. ganges
dear friends At last after changing the dates twice, we finished our Srilanka trip successfully and came back on 8th. we were there for nine days and covered the most parts. As I promised I am sharing my experience with you. We reached at 4am on 31/3/12 and the driver was waiting outside the colombo airport. we started our journey at sharp 5 AM via Galle and Mathara to reach Kathirgamam. At Galle we stopped to see the coral beach. We had a boat ride for a km inside the sea in the glass bottom fibre boat to see the clear under water. It was wonderful but the boat charge for 3 of us was 3000rs. At kathirgamam we had a nice darshan and we visited chella Kathirgamam too. At night we stayed at Hotel Wila Safari, Weera vila, Yala. We booked through Agoda and the service and ambience here was too good. On 1/4/12 early morning we left for Nuwura Eliya. We packed our BF as well as lunch. We took a mini rice cooker and pickles, podies and chips. So our lunch and dinner most of the days were cool. We went to Ravana water falls, Ashoka vanam and Devon falls on the way to the Hotel Ashley Resorts. The staff in this hotel were excellent and they provided us a good Indian food through out our stay. On 2/4/12 morning we went to haton plains and enjoyed the 9 1/2 km trekking. We saw the mini and big world end and bakers fall there. Every other visitors there were surprised to see us three sisters trekking with full enthu. It took 6 hours to finish the walk and the remaining hours on that day we just relaxed at hotel after a very hot water bath. on 3/4/12 we left for Kandy from Nuwura eliya. The cook packed us soft Idiyappams and Sothi (stew). As usual we packed our lunch and left by car. On the way we stopped at Ramboda to see the Anjaneya temple of Chinmaya mission. On the way we stopped at a tea manufacturing factory and bought some. If we stop to have tea on the roadside shop, we have to mention twice to reduce the sugar because their level of sugar in the tea in general is too much. We visited the strawberry and peach farm and bought some fresh jam. We reached the hotel Hill Top at Kandy by noon and relaxed for some time. In the evening we saw the cultural show and tooth temple(maligava). It is too good and in general the city is very beautiful. First time we felt that we are in Srilanka. ( otherwise it was like kerala only). We saw Botanical garden there which is very beautiful. But every where except Hindu temples they are charging a very high entry fee for foreigners. On 4/4/12 we headed for Trincomalee. On the way we stopped at Dambolla and visited the golden temple and the cave temple. We have to climb 352 steps but once up you will be lost in the beauty of the very old Budha statues. We reached trinco at 3 pm and straight went to the Hotel Welcombe, and relaxed for some time. At five we went to have darshan at the first Eashwaram called Koneswaram. It was a wonderful experience and we saw Hot water spring and Nilaveli beach which is supposed to be the beautiful one in SL. On the way back to the hotel, we had a military check up first time in our tour. The soldiers treated us nicely when they saw we were only ladies from India and our main aim was pilgrimage. We were surprised to hear them talking about Thiru njana sambandar. We had a peaceful night at the hotel which was on the sea road. 5/4/12 morning we left for Jafna via vavunia and Kilinochi. Through out this journey of about 250 kms, we had several military checkings and the roads were under repairing. Every where we can see the after effects of the war there. It took more than 6 hours to cover the distance and as per our tour Itinary, we straight went to Pungudu theevu which is 32 kms away from Jafna. It is a long road inside the sea and there is no words to describe the beauty. We left our car there and took a Boat service to reach Nagatheevu to have a darshan at Nagabooshani amman Koil. Luckily the temples at SL are closing late in the noon but they will reopen in the evening late. Many people in the boat were surprised to see three ladies alike. Most of the people we met were very friendly. In the night we stayed at the hotel and early in the morning 0f 6/4/12 we went to see the Naguleswaram temple ( the second Eashwaram) which is 19kms away from jaffna. It is in Keerimalai and Kangesan thurai. The temple is a very huge one and we met the guruji at the temple who is 100 years old and learnt a lot about the temple history. The beach here is very calm, neat and beautiful. The water is turqoise blue and crystal clear. We spent some time there in the temple, beach and the minerl water spring. We had darshan at nallur Kandaswamy temple too. At 9am we finished all the sight seeing at Jaffna and left for Mannar. The road was in a very bad condition and it took more than 3 hours to cross 120 kms. We went to Thieruketheeswaram temple here ( believed that Kethu worshipped shiva here and Lord Rama made the thrid lingam prathishta here). We met lots of school children and the teachers in this temple area and came to know about their life during war time. Since we have to reach Chilaw at 5pm we missed the chance to see Thalaimannar which is further away from Mannar. It seems we can see the trace of Rameshwaram from Thalaimannar. We reached Chilaw City Hotel at 10 pm and had a late dinner and settled. The early morning on 7/4/12 we spent about two hours in the Hotel beach and enjoyed the nature. At 9 am we went to the temple MUNNESWARAM, the last eashwaram in our itinary. It is believed that the original idol here was worshipped by Ravana and Rama got 5 lingams in this temple to remove the Brahmahathi dosham after killed Ravana who was a brahmin. The temple and the pooja rituals were excellent and at about 11 am we started for Colombo which is about 90 kms from Chilaw. We reached at lunch time and had a relaxed lunch at the hotel PALM BEACH RESORT. The hotel is very near to the sea shore and the ambience and staff were excellent. In the evening we enjoyed the sun set at the sea shore and went for shopping at the House of fashion. We purchased a lot of clothes for our children and grand children and came back to the hotel. On 8/4/12 after the relaxed break fast at the hotel we left for the airport. When the flight took off we had the final glimpse of the nature filled Srilanka. From the discussions we had from some of the public there, We prayed god for the innocent people who lost there life during the war time. May god bless the peace there for ever. Friends, thank you all for sharing your knowledge about SL which helped us a lot to plan our trip. I made a little lenthy details but this is for anybody who is going to SL for the first time. Thank you once again. Love ganga
