We spent 10 days in Sri Lanka in late June/ early July 2017, visiting the ‘cultural triangle’, the east coast and the hill country. Tea pickers in the hill country We really enjoyed our trip and wanted to share some of the things we learnt about the practicalities of travelling around the ‘Pearl of the Indian Ocean’. Obviously, after a 10 day trip, we are far from being experts on the country, but the information below is a combination of…
On our final full day in Habarana, we treated ourselves to an Ayurvedic massage in our home stay, before a trip to Minneriya National Park to see the elephants. Our Ayurvedic experience involved a full body massage, followed by 10 minutes or so of hot oil dripping on our foreheads. Apparently it drips onto our third eye… And then we went into the herbal sauna. The massage was good, but the oil dripping was a little bit weird. I’m still not…
We spent our first four days in Sri Lanka in the ‘Cultural Triangle’ area of the country, basing ourselves in Habarana. Our first day was spent at Sigiriya and Dambulla. On our second day we explored the sprawling ruins of 1,000 year old Polonnaruwa. It was Sri Lanka’s capital city for 300 years from the late 10th century but was abandoned in the 13th century, as it was proving more and more susceptible to Indian invasion. A ‘new’ town has since…
We spent 10 days exploring the island of Sri Lanka, mostly in small family-run ‘homestay’ style hotels. Of the different accommodation website, booking.com seemed to work best. Here’s where we went and where we stayed: 1) Habarana – Mutu Village To explore the ‘Cultural Triangle’ area of Sri Lanka, we based ourselves in Habarana, as it is well located for visiting Sigiriya, Dambulla, Polonnaruwa and Minneriya National Park. Following a strong recommendation in an online travel discussion, I booked us…
After enjoying our first Hindu wedding in Chennai, India, we flew to Sri Lanka for 10 days to explore the ‘Pearl of the Indian Ocean’. It was just a short hour and half flight across the Indian Ocean. Very excited to be at Sigiriya We spent our first four nights in the country in Habarana – a town in an area of Sri Lanka known as the ‘Cultural Triangle’. There’s not much to see in Habarana itself, although I did…