Things to do in Sri Lanka
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Nescoffee
This cool and compact roadside cafe/bar is an homage to Robert Nesta Marley and has nonstop reggae beats and Ella’s coldest beer. You’ll need it for the spicy devilled cashews. Breakfast is available from early in the day, and Nescoffee stays open ‘till the last person leaves’. (Let your guest-house owner know if you’re going to be late, because some places in Ella close their doors a tad early.)
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Sri Lanka Trekking
Based at Expeditor guest house, Sumone Bandara and Ravi Kandy at Sri Lanka Trekkingcan arrange trekking around Kandy and camping and trekking expeditions to the rugged Knuckles Range. Sumone and Ravi can also arrange mountain biking and rafting trips in other parts of the Hill Country.
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Lakpahana
As with Laksala and Lanka Hands, this Cinnamon Gardens showroom carries traditionally crafted items, including lacework, jewellery, batik and masks, as well as tea.
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Victoria Golf & Country Resort
The Victoria Golf & Country Resort is 20km east of Kandy. Surrounded on three sides by the Victoria Reservoir and with the Knuckles Range as a backdrop, it’s worth coming for lunch at the clubhouse and to savour the views. Claimed to be the best golf course in the subcontinent, it’s a fairly challenging 18 holes.
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Circle Sri Lanka
15 days (Negombo)
by Intrepid
Bliss out beachside in Mirissa, Learn the secrets of Sri Lankan cuisine in Bandarawela, Shop up a storm in Colombo, Walk the ramparts of Galle, Witness…Not LP reviewed
from USD$1,975 -
Kelaniya Raja Maha Vihara
Even if the thought of seeing yet another temple sends you reaching for the arrack, this Buddhist temple is worth the effort. The original temple was destroyed by Indian invaders, restored, destroyed again by the Portuguese, and restored again in the 18th and 19th centuries. The dagoba, which (unusually) is hollow, is the focus of the Duruthu Perahera in January each year. To reach the temple take bus 235 from in front of the traffic-police station, which is just northeast of the Bastian Mawatha bus station.
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Gallery Cafe
The historic building that houses Gallery Cafe used to be an office for Sri Lanka’s most famous architect, Geoffrey Bawa. The open-air cafe area looks over a pebbled courtyard, while the lounge bar is where Bawa’s old office used to be – in fact, his desk is still there. The decor is stunning and the Sri Lankan–inspired dishes focus on fresh ingredients and bold, clean flavours. As a cheaper option, come for an afternoon coffee.
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Green Cabin
This place is a bit of an institution in the local restaurant trade. It’s well known for both its baked goods and its inexpensive Sri Lankan, Indian and Chinese dishes. The lunchtime buffet is excellent value – the mango curry, if it’s on, is very good. For a snack try the vegetable pastries or the cardiac-arrest-inducing bacon-and-egg pies.
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Kandyan Art Association & Cultural Centre
The Kandyan Art Association & Cultural Centre has a good selection of local lacquerwork, brassware and other craft items in a colonial-era showroom covered in a patina of age (see above). There are some craftspeople working on the spot.
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Bijou
You’ll know this place is Swiss-owned when you see fondue (advance order, Rs 2000) and other Swiss and German specialities on the menu. It mixes up such heavy dishes with a wide range of seafood.
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Odel Unlimited
Head here to shop with the glamorous. You’ll find everything from homewares, designer-label clothing and sportswear to banana soap.
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Temple of the Sacred Tooth Relic
Just north of the lake, the Temple of the Sacred Tooth Relic houses Sri Lanka's most important Buddhist relic - a tooth of the Buddha. The temple sustained damage when a bomb was detonated - by the Liberation Tigers of Tamil Eelam (LTTE), according to the government - near the main entrance in early 1998, but the scars have been repaired.
The tooth is said to have been snatched from the flames of the Buddha's funeral pyre in 543 BC, and was smuggled into Sri Lanka during the 4th century AD, hidden in the hair of a princess. At first it was taken to Anuradhapura, but with the ups and downs of Sri Lankan history it moved from place to place before eventually ending up at…
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Yala National Park
With trumpeting elephants, monkeys crashing through the trees, peacocks in their finest frocks and cunning leopards sliding like shadows through the undergrowth, Yala National Park (also known as Ruhunu) is The Jungle Book brought to glorious life. This vast region of dry woodland and open patches of grasslands is the big draw of this corner of Sri Lanka, and though it’s far from Kenya, a safari here is well worth all the time, effort and cost.
The entrance fees are payable at the main office, which is near the entrance, some 21km from Tissa. There are a few displays here of the pickled and stuffed variety. The road from Tissa is rough but passable, although a 4WD is…
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Sri Maha Bodhi
The Sri Maha Bodhi, the sacred bodhi tree, is central to Anuradhapura in both a spiritual and physical sense. The huge tree has grown from a cutting brought from Bodhgaya in India by the Princess Sangamitta, sister of Mahinda (who introduced the Buddha's teachings to Sri Lanka), so it has a connection to the very basis of the Sinhalese religion.
This sacred tree serves as a reminder of the force that inspired the creation of all the great buildings at Anuradhapura, and is within walking distance of many of the most interesting monuments. The whole area around the Sri Maha Bodhi, the Brazen Palace and Ruvanvelisaya Dagoba was once probably part of the Maha Vihara (Great…
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World’s End
This is the only national park in Sri Lanka where visitors are permitted to walk on their own (on designated trails only). The walk to World’s End is 4km, but the trail loops back to Baker’s Falls (2km) and continues back to the entrance (another 3.5km). The round trip is 9.5km and takes a leisurely three hours. Note that around 9am to 10am the mist usually comes down. All you can expect to see from World’s End after this time is a swirling white wall. If you aim for a 5.30am departure from Nuwara Eliya or Haputale and get to World’s End around 7am, you’ll have a good chance of spectacular views.
Try to avoid doing this walk on Sundays and public holidays, when…
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Nallur Kandaswamy Kovil
Approximately 2km northeast of the centre, the Nallur Kandaswamy Kovil is the most impressive religious building in Jaffna and one of the most significant Hindu temple complexes in Sri Lanka. Its sacred deity, Murugan (or Skanda), is central to temple activity, especially during the punctual, cacophonic pujas (5am, 10am, noon, 4pm and 5pm), when offerings are made to his brass-framed image and other Hindu deities like Ganesh, Murugan’s elephant-headed brother, in shrines surrounding the inner sanctum.
The kovil’s 15th-century structure fell victim to Portuguese destructive ruthlessness in the 17th century; the current one dates from 1734. Its beautifully maintained…
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Diyaluma Falls
The 171m-high Diyaluma Falls, Sri Lanka’s third-highest waterfall, is just 5km beyond the town of Koslanda. Cascading down an escarpment of the Koslanda Plateau, the stream is fairly small, but it quickly escalates after a downpour. By bus, take a Wellawaya service from Haputale and get off at Diyaluma (1¼ hours). The falls leap over a cliff face and fall in one clear drop to a pool below.
Climb up to some beautiful pools – ideal for swimming – and a series of minifalls at the top of the main fall. Walk about 500m down the road from the bottom of the falls and take the estate track that turns sharply back up to the left. From there it’s about 20 minutes’ walk to a…
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Nuwara Eliya Golf Club
Nuwara Eliya Golf Club, spreading north from Grand Hotel Rd, is beautifully kept and has a retinue of languid sleeping dogs guarding more than a few of the greens.
It didn’t take the tea planters long to lay out land for drives and putts in their holiday town, and the club was founded in 1889. The club has been through tough times but survives to this day. Water hazards – in the form of rivers and streams – come into play on six holes. Temporary members pay Rs 100 per day. Hire golf clubs for Rs 1080 per day and golf shoes for Rs 168 per day. The club expects a certain dress code: for men, shirt with collar and pants or shorts (of a decent length), socks and shoes; and…
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Adisham Monastery
This Benedictine monastery is about 3km west of Haputale. Follow Temple Rd along the ridge until you reach the sign at the Adisham turn-off. The elegant stone-block monastery once belonged to tea planter Sir Thomas Lester Villiers. To recreate his English lifestyle, he developed beautiful gardens and lawns amid the tropical surroundings and even had a Daimler car for transport, complete with an English chauffuer. Adisham is one of only 18 monasteries in the world belonging to the Sylvestrine Congregation, a suborder of the Benedictine fraternity founded in the 13th century. Inside, visitors are allowed to see the living room and library, and occasionally a couple more…
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Hakgala Gardens
The Hakgala Gardens, 10km southeast of Nuwara Eliya (and about 200m lower), was originally a plantation of cinchona, the plant from which the antimalarial drug quinine is extracted. Later, the gardens were used for experiments in acclimatising temperate-zone plants to life in the tropics. The gardens were run by the same family for three generations until the 1940s. Today Hakgala sprawls across 27 hectares and is famed for its roses, ferns and medicinal plants.
Legend has it that Hanuman, the monkey god, was sent by Rama to the Himalayas to find a particular medicinal herb. He forgot which herb he was looking for and decided to bring a chunk of the Himalayas back in his…
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Lords
By far Negombo’s most creative eating experience. Martin, the British owner of this half restaurant, half art gallery, brings a larger-than-life presence to the place and is a rare thing among expat restaurant owners in that he actually works on the floor and in the kitchen making sure that everything is just spot on. The food, which is so superbly prepared and presented that the thought of a free meal was enough to get the president himself to come and open the restaurant, is a hybrid of Western and Eastern flavours. The gallery displays excellent contempory work by local artists.
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Dambatenne Tea Factory
A few tea factories in this area are happy to have visitors. The most popular, Dambatenne, was built by Sir Thomas Lipton in 1890, one of the most famous figures in tea history. A tour through the works is an education on the processes involved in the fermentation, rolling, drying, cutting, sieving and grading of tea.
Although it’s 11km from Haputale, the popular factory is easily accessible. A bus for the estate workers goes from the bus station for Bandarawela to the factory and back again about every 25 minutes (Rs 15). A three-wheeler there and back costs about Rs 500.
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Pedro Tea Estate
To see where your morning cuppa originates, head to the Pedro Tea Estate, about 3.5km east of Nuwara Eliya on the way to Kandapola. Guided tours of the factory, originally built in 1885 and still packed with 19th-century engineering, run for a half-hour. Overlooking the plantations there’s a pleasant tea house. A three-wheeler from Nuwara Eliya should cost Rs 700 to 800 return, including waiting time. The Single Tree Hotel runs trips for Rs 500 per person. Alternatively you could hop on a Ragalla-bound bus (bus 743) from the main bus station in Nuwara Eliya.
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Lipton’s Seat
Near the Dambatenne tea factory, the Lipton’s Seat lookout rivals the views from World’s End (and it’s free). The Scottish tea baron Sir Thomas Lipton used to survey his burgeoning empire from here.
Take the signed narrow paved road from the tea factory and climb about 7km through lush tea plantations to the lookout. From the tea factory the ascent should take about 2½ hours. The earliest bus leaves Haputale at 6.30am. Look forward to the company of Tamil tea pickers going off to work as you walk uphill to Lipton’s Seat.
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Shanti Vihar
This place's deliciously spicy vegetarian food and very reasonable prices make it popular with locals and foreigners alike. It's a basic, well-worn eatery, though there is a fancier air-con section. The menu's South Indian offerings are especially good: masala dosa (curried vegetables inside a paper-thin lentil-flour pancake)for Rs 60, curd vadai (a deep-fried lentil-flour patty with yoghurt) for Rs 25 and Madras thalis for Rs 90. Shanti Vihar also has a home-delivery service.
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