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I went about 4 yrs ago and had a blast. Colombo is good and Kandy is O.K. I spent some time on a beach town called Hickadua and that was fun too. As for costs, I got by on a purple backpacker budget, so unless you work flipin burgers at the local Mickey Dees, cost should not be a consideration. At the time I was there the NE of the country was off limits to tourists but I think that has changed. The only thing I did not like was all the touts offering little boys, and always asking in German. Most importantly though, the beer is good and Sri Lanka is the only country I have been to where the dope dealers give you papers with your bag of weed :twisted:
(OK can’t log in, can’t be arsed trying too hard, but its me, I swear)
Hey ROB, Sorry, work has been carnage so I haven’t been around much.
I go to Sri Lanka all the time. Awesome place, rocking surf in Hikkaduwa, Galle, Aragorn Bay etc… and really good beaches even whrer there isn’t surf. Up north, up around the Jaffna isthmus (try actually saying that word out loud without spitting) there are really good beaches too. The whole area up north has opened up a lot, but for some reason the hordes of french/ italian honey mooners are still sticking to the south.
Inland, Kandy as mentioned before is ok, theres an elephant orphanage thats a bit different… unless you’ve seen all the ones in thailand. You can help scrub them down at the river. I’ve got a pic of me surfing on top of an elephant somewheres.
A few hours north of kandy is a place called Sigariya, which is like a scale model Ayers rock (the real name escapes me right now, sorry). Theres the remains of a citadel on top, and some buddhist temples carved into the rockside itself. Very intricate carvings and paintings still in use today..
The people are really friendly, and you don’t need a Singhalese interpreter on call. I got a few school kids in neatly pressed white uniforms shyly ask me for a ‘school pen’ a few times and that was it. Its a bit ‘lonely planeteerish’ giving out pens I know, but they seem to appreciate any you’ve got. When I go over there I always take a couple box loads of surgical gloves for a couple of clinics there. It was a wake up call to me when I went around one and saw some freshly washed gloves drying in the sun.
There is decent medical care there, but many places are really rough.
If theres any cricket going on there at the time, try and get to the ground, its an awesome atmosphere, no matter who is playing.
The seafood there is about the best in the world IMHO and costs slightly less than a happy meal for a 4 course meal.
Thats about all that springs to my overworked jetlagged mind at this point in time, but I can probably answer most queries you’ve got. I’ve got a lot of Sri Lankan mates over here who could answer anything I don’t know at any rate. (Yes I’ll still take credit for their answers :D [/i]And regarding the security precautions:
Don’t leave your passport in a hotel safe, especially if you go out at night. There arn’t so many road blocks now, but they still have a few who like to officiously go through your docs. Especially if you’re white and in a tuk tuk… and smell of alcohol.
They don’t give foreigners a hard time though, they are aware how fragile their tourism industry is and take and tourist (hate that word) complaint pretty seriously.
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