Sri Lanka. Part 1. Planning / Flight / Transfer
It all started at the beginning of 2020 - I decided that our next trip would be to Sri Lanka. I've been there before, but I couldn't see much due to a number of reasons. I wanted to see Yala Park and I wanted to show my child the elephants in the wild. In March 2020, I bought tickets and booked accommodation in Unawatuna, at @Rumassala Villas (I made an advance payment). All participants of the tour were happy about the upcoming trip (and maybe not all). But due to the pandemic, our flight was cancelled. It should be noted here that our airline @Qatar Airways, unlike many other airlines, offered us 3 options: 1 - return the money in full; 2 - convert tickets into bonuses with a premium of 10% and use them to pay for any flights; 3 - reschedule the flight to any convenient date during the year. I chose the third option and rescheduled my flight to October 2020. But the flight was canceled again (Sri Lanka closed for tourists), the airline again extended the choice of flights for a year or a year and a half (I don’t remember exactly), and we postponed the decision until the country opens. As time went on, some of our gang already began to offer to cancel the trip, take the money and forget about Sri Lanka. But no - this is not my option, I knew for sure that I needed to go there. And now the country has opened for like 3 months, the entry requirements began to be eased, and it became clear that the time had come. I called @Qatar Airways, rebooked, bought another ticket for my dad, and we started the planning phase of our trip.
It was probably 4 iterations until we approved the best option. It was known that we were starting from the city of Kandy, because. it is located in the center of the island and from there you can move along the route. Of the mandatory places, the route included: Kandy, Trincomalee, Yalu, Unawatuna.
Basically, all the options concerned the timing of the stop and plans for moving through the given mandatory places. The first options suggested one or two overnight stays at the place of stop and then we move on. After a little thought, we began to understand that this would exhaust us greatly and we would spend time not on excursions, but on fees. The final plan was: 4 nights in Kandy, 1-2 nights in Trincomal, 2 nights in Tissamahomara, 5 nights in Unawatuna.
Next, we had to book accommodation. We started from the last place of stay - Unawatuna. We had a prepayment for the villa. But the whole problem is that a maximum of 4 adults and one child can live there, and we are already 6 people. The process of negotiations with the owners of the villas has begun. Various options were discussed, but the option was chosen to finish another villa - this was 100% the most correct option.
The next step is housing planning in Kandy. Airbnb found several options. They wrote to one owner - he dragged something for a very long time with an answer, and I wrote to another owner. This time the answer came literally in 15-20 minutes, I asked for a discount - they gave it to me, the reviews are good and there are a lot of them. In general, I made a decision (almost no one from the team objected, @Ira Latysheva, confirm) - this is what we need. And I was not mistaken. The owner turned out to be a really nice person and was ready to help us with every question I had: rent a car - yes, of course, I will take you to the rent car; issue local rights - yes, of course, I will take it to the police administration, they will do it there in 15 minutes, most importantly, take a photo; can you help arrange airport transfers, we are 6 people, we need a minibus - yes, of course, Mr. SD will meet you (I will talk about him later). You can watch the video review at https://youtu. be/Hk7K7ZDQN20. I held the camera a little wrong (I am learning to shoot by hand), but you can get an idea of u200bu200bthe housing.
Next to Trincomalee or Trinco, as it is called in Sri Lanka. Airbnb - did not offer anything good, or offered some exorbitant prices for it is not clear what kind of housing. They began to look at accommodation on booking. Found the best option - $ 38 / day. We booked for one day, and decided, if anything, we will extend for another day. You can watch the video review here https://youtu. be/4ztspqajgD4.
We are left with the last mandatory item - Yala. To get to Yala, you can stop at Kataragama or Tissamahomara (Tissa). Began to look at the options. We decided on Tissamahomara, on booking we found accommodation for two nights. For two - because one night to move away from the move, and in the morning go on an excursion. And the second is to take a break from the tour and go to the next point of deployment.
There was one day between Trincomalee and Tissamahomara that we tried to plan, but the kina didn't work out. Now I will explain what is the point. If we stay two nights in Trincomalee, then everything is clear for us by day, but we get a very long journey in time - 11-12 hours. If we spend the night only one night, then we can drive for 6 hours and have to stop somewhere. In Kyiv, we began to consider the town of Pottuvil - it is plus or minus halfway from Trinco to Tisza. But the garbage is that we could not find housing there. It seems to be on both Airbnb and booking, but it is not suitable for us. As a result, we did not stay for the second night and Trinco and drove towards Pottuvil without a booked accommodation - pure adventure. But the adventure went well! Arugam Bay - there are quite a lot of different kinds of hotels, we stopped in one of them.
A few words about flights and transfers.
Fly, as I wrote above, Qatar Airways, from Kyiv - airbus a320, from Doha - Airbus a350. I just caught myself thinking that the service in the days of the USSR on board the Aeroflot was definitely no worse. In general, what many people write about and talk about the “wow service” at Qatars, I did not see this. Yes - well done, but it seems that everyone should have it, and there is nothing complicated about it.
When boarding, they asked for a PCR test and a vaccination passport. In Doha, when leaving the arrivals area, they went through a screening of hand luggage and took water. Transfer 3.5 hours. passed quickly enough. Somewhere we found places in the waiting room, settled down. We walked around the territory and now they announced our landing. 10 minutes and we are on board the A350. The layout of the seats is 3-4-3. According to my feelings, the board was filled by 95-100%. The service is exactly the same as on the A320 from Kyiv. You can watch the flight here - https://youtu. be/VBnXeXVByf8
Arrived in Colombo, filled out the migration card, received a visa in the passport and went to the exit. Changed money before leaving. Here is an interesting point: kiosks with currency exchange costs about 5 pieces and everyone has a different rate. Therefore, you have to ask. We changed Baku currency at the rate of 213 rupees for one dollar (the official rate is 202 rupees). At the exit, those who did not have electronic health declarations filled out filled them in paper form, then we approached the officer with the completed forms, showed the vaccination passport and PCR, received some papers (I didn’t even look at them) and that’s it, consider we left from the airport is a win! But no! Still need to get internet. We bought a Mobitel card - 64 GB of Internet (something about $ 30, if I'm not mistaken). This Internet was enough for me and Ira. I must say that the situation has really improved with the Internet - it was in all the hotels where we stayed. We used mobile Internet while on the road and it was at the level of five for the Internet. Now it's almost - Wow! Almost - because everyone is already tired kapets-like: 2h - landing; 10h flight; 3.5h transfer; 1.5 hours procedures for leaving the airport; change of time zone, and also moving from the airport to Kandy.
All this time, while we were busy getting out of the airport, a man was waiting for us, who was organized by the owner of the house in Kandy. I wrote to him periodically to understand that he was waiting for us and to give him an understanding at what stage we were. “Mr. SD, he will be waiting for you at the exit with a sign” - this is how the owner of the house introduced him to us. We were met by SD, we loaded into his minibus and drove to Kandy, outside the window at 4 am. Travel time - 3.5 hours. We drove very carefully, and a stream of workers in Colombo was coming towards us, and this stream became stronger and stronger.
– Where are they all going?
- They are coming from the suburbs to work in Colombo!
Well, they go and go, what's wrong with that? And this is what is “such” here - we planned to take a car to travel around the island, but seeing this chaos in the traffic, one of our participants began to persuade himself and not only to abandon this undertaking. And on the way we saw a couple of accidents: an overturned tuk-tuk and a truck that drove into a tree - began to reinforce the idea that renting a car is not a good idea. I honestly did not want to delve into the essence of the initiatives, I had only one desire - to get home, settle in and go to sleep. SD drove us safe and sound, we were met by Mr. Lakshantha. We settled down and went to bed. Then there will be the second part - excursions.
