Things to do in Ella Sri Lanka
There’s much more than tea brewing in the hills of Sri Lanka Set on the southeastern edge of Uva Province, ELLA is one of the hill country’s most appealing destinations. This is the closest thing to an English country village you’ll find in Sri Lanka, enjoying a pleasantly temperate climate and surrounded by idyllic green hills blanketed […]
Modern Day Trinco
I have written about Trincomalee in the past but feel that I should cover this intriguing coastal town a bit more in detail, touching on the new attractions and sites to do and see while there. Trincomalee (popularly refered to as Trinco) is the largest city in the Eastern Province of Sri Lanka and is […]
History of Sigiriya
The romance of Sigiriya, the playboy’s palace in the sky, has provided inspired for many books, plays and even films, with more than one legend to explain its origins. All theories hinge around the cult of King Kasyapa. The Mahavansa records that King Kasyapa (reigned AD 477-495) killed his father, King Dhatusena, by plastering him […]
What to expect in Nuwara Eliya, Sri Lanka
In 1846, when Samuel Baker first visited the semi-enclosed valley surrounded by hills on the west and overlooked by Pidurutalagala, the island’s highest peak, he singled it out as an ideal spot for a hill country retreat. The town flourished into resemble the English country side with a 18 hole golf course (that is one […]
The ‘must-see’ Museums in Sri Lanka
For a country steeped in History, Sri Lanka offers numerous musuems scattered across the island. Sri Lanka’s history for starters, pre-dates Christianity with the arrival of Buddhism to the island, was a key destination of the spice trade routes, was colonised by the Dutch, Portuguese and the English for centuries and now lives to display […]
A Sri Lankan Holiday – 2013
One of the best news to come out of Asia in the recent past was the end of the long-running civil war in Sri Lanka in 2009. Sri Lanka is one of the loveliest islands in the region, it was known to Arab traders as ‘Serendip’, then fell under Portuguese and later Dutch and British […]
Bentota
About a 2 hour drive south of Colombo along the famous Galle Road, is arguably Sri Lanka’s most popular beach resort of Bentota which offer superb swathe of golden sand and a string of luxury resort hotels. Development here has been more muted than its neighboring Beruwala, with hotels laid out at discrete intervals along the beach and […]
Hikkaduwa
Approximate 3 hour drive South of Colombo, lies the busy beach town of Hikkaduwa, Sri Lanka 100 km (62 miles) from Colombo. Sri Lanka’s longest-established budget beach hangout, Hikkaduwa offers a lively down-market alternative to the more sedate and expensive resorts at Bentota, Beruwala and Kalutara, and attracts a stream of surfers, divers and party-loving sun-worshipers. Uncontrolled development has taken […]
Three weeks or longer gives you a chance to explore the sites in greater depth and to get off the beaten track. You could easily spend a week exploring the villages of the south coast, or a few days trekking in the hill country, visiting some of lesser visited ancient sites of Northwest and North […]
PERADENIYA ROYAL BOTANICAL GARDENS
About 6 km (or 4 miles) from Kandy are the Peradeniya Botanical Gardens (open daily, 7.30am to 4.30pm with an entrance charge), the largest and finest in Sri Lanka. Enclosed in a loop of the Mahaweli Ganga river, the lush 60-hectare (147-acre) gardens are stuffed with a baffling array of Sri Lankan, Asian and international […]