There was a time when Sri Lanka used to get more foreign tourists than Thailand did, but then followed a 30 year civil war, and thing went downhill for the country. The war ended a few years ago, and things are back to normal, except that the whole tourism infrastructure need to be built from scratch, and that is a time consuming process even in any well governed country. There is a lot of heritage in the country, which if properly showcased, will attract lot of tourists, but for my taste now, I am just glad we didn't select it for our hostel reunion later in the year.
Distances are not very large but it can take a few hours to cover those given the narrow road and heavy traffic. We had two days to discover central part, before coming back to Colombo for slpl finals. Our first stop was at pinnewala elephant orphanage and it was quite a site to see some thirty odds elephants taking a river bath together. After a few more hours of arduous journey, we reached dambulla cave temples, which are some 2100 years old, and had some brilliantly carved out Buddhist statues in the caves. It was worth the long climb to see this historic place.
Our plans to see the sigiriya ancient city ruins were ruined because of the ongoing construction work on the road, and after waiting for an hour at one of those logjams, we decided to turn back to Kandy. Seeing the Buddha's tooth temple was nice, but again I got the feeling there was nothing in Kandy, despite it's beautiful location, that I haven't seen better and well organized elsewhere before. This unfortunate feeling lasted for the rest of the trip, and while Sri Lanka is a cheap place to travel, I couldn't figure out why it shouldn't be so.
Our last few days were spent in Galle, the beach town in the south west part. This was the area hit by a devastating tsunami a few years back, and there are still reminders of that horrible day around. They have beautiful corals, but the weather was bad and sea was rough, so we spent most of the time inside the unawatuna beach resort, a rather non descript but none the less highly rated on trip advisor resort. It's time to go back now, and it will be while before I come back to Sri Lanka again.
Distances are not very large but it can take a few hours to cover those given the narrow road and heavy traffic. We had two days to discover central part, before coming back to Colombo for slpl finals. Our first stop was at pinnewala elephant orphanage and it was quite a site to see some thirty odds elephants taking a river bath together. After a few more hours of arduous journey, we reached dambulla cave temples, which are some 2100 years old, and had some brilliantly carved out Buddhist statues in the caves. It was worth the long climb to see this historic place.
Our plans to see the sigiriya ancient city ruins were ruined because of the ongoing construction work on the road, and after waiting for an hour at one of those logjams, we decided to turn back to Kandy. Seeing the Buddha's tooth temple was nice, but again I got the feeling there was nothing in Kandy, despite it's beautiful location, that I haven't seen better and well organized elsewhere before. This unfortunate feeling lasted for the rest of the trip, and while Sri Lanka is a cheap place to travel, I couldn't figure out why it shouldn't be so.
Our last few days were spent in Galle, the beach town in the south west part. This was the area hit by a devastating tsunami a few years back, and there are still reminders of that horrible day around. They have beautiful corals, but the weather was bad and sea was rough, so we spent most of the time inside the unawatuna beach resort, a rather non descript but none the less highly rated on trip advisor resort. It's time to go back now, and it will be while before I come back to Sri Lanka again.
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