Наш отдых в Шри-ланке Our holiday in Sri Lanka

Our holiday in Sri Lanka consisted of 3 days of excursions (Colombo-Habarana-Dambulla-Sigiriya-Matale-Kandy-Paradinia-Giragama-Pinovela) and a 9-day holiday in Kalutara at the Royal Palms Beach Hotel. The rest began with an arrival at the Colombo national airport (flight Kyiv-Abu Dhabi 5h10min and Abu Dhabi-Colombo-4h30min with a fair wind. Duty Free turned out to be much cheaper in the transfer zone in Abu Dhabi !! )). 4.25 am) 28 C. The time difference is 1 hour 30 minutes with Moscow time and 2 hours 30 minutes with Belarusian time (writing 1.30 and 2.30 hours, I was not mistaken). The dollar exchange rate at the airport is 1$ = 107 rupees, in all other places - 1$ = 110-115 rupees.

The transfer from the airport to Kandy (and this was the first stop on our 3-day sightseeing tour of Sri Lanka) took approx. 4 hours. The sightseeing tour of Kandy, which was on our list of excursions, is landscapes passing through the glass of the bus, while being taken to the second destination - the Dalada Maligawa temple. An unremarkable building, it just keeps the Sacred Tooth of the Buddha, which you still can’t see, because. it is only shown once a year during the Perahera festival in August. At 5 pm on the territory of the temple, in the theater, they staged a theatrical performance of 11 national dances. The same could be seen at the Royal Palms Beach Hotel, as one of the evening show programs.

The next, third destination is the Royal Botanical Garden in Paradenia. On 147 acres of land, there are 4.000 different trees and bushes, many of which were planted by famous people. But since the guide speaks Russian heavily, it’s hard to find out anything interesting besides the names. On the territory of the garden there is a pavilion with orchids, which took us exactly 2 minutes to look around. The Botanical Garden is a 2-hour walk under the pouring sun through the neglected and neglected territory of the park among the trees.

At about 6 pm, the first day of excursions ended, and since it is not safe to walk around the city at night, there was no continuation of excursions on our own, so we had to go to the “most comfortable” Pearl of Ceylon hotel, where even drying yourself with a towel is “unsafe for health”. The worst hotel was not met, even in underdeveloped Cambodia.

Conclusion: the first day of excursions is a waste of money and a wasted day of vacation.

The second day began with a transfer to Sigiriya, with a visit to the spice garden in Matale on the way. In the spice garden, we were shown how all spices grow, as well as products made from them, which could be purchased for yourself, your friends and acquaintances. “Scam for money” or not, judge for yourself. In Matale, 10g of spices cost 2$, coconut oil 200g-52$, and in Kalutara (4 km from this place the Royal Palms Beach Hotel is located. ) 400g of spices bought at the factory, at the spice garden, cost us 1050 rupees (about 10 $), and 300g of coconut oil bought from a local resident who makes it himself costs $8. The guide told us 5 times, they say, without checks for oils, wooden products, teas and jewelry, they will not let us out of the country and you can buy only in places where the guide takes. Don't fall for this nonsense.

After we were “scammed for money” (at that time we did not know this yet), we were brought to Sigiriya. This is a rock, 370 meters high, with a terrace of 1.7 hectares, on which the palace used to be located (although it is a moot point whether the palace was once on this site, or the so-called palace was nothing more than an open meditation hall , and flowering gardens and ponds created an ideal environment for this. ) A truly majestic place, although after examining it, I wanted to relax, rest and have a cold shower. After descending from the mountain, we were attacked by souvenir merchants. It is worth paying attention to puzzle boxes with secret niches. We came across such things only from merchants in Sigiriya and Dambulla.

Tired, sweaty, we were taken to the next point of the program - Dambulla. Temple dating from the 1st century BC, built in 150 m of rock with a perimeter of one mile at the base, consisting of 5 caves. It houses the largest collection of Buddha statues, many of which are over 2000 years old. You can see this famous building only by climbing 140 steps (guide's words). If you are not a Buddhist and do not admire Buddha statues, then you are unlikely to be interested. By the way, the entrance to the temples, sacred places and temple complexes of Sri Lanka is allowed only with completely covered feet, both for women and men (for example, tourists can enter the temples of Thailand with their feet covered up to the knee) and without shoes (her can be deposited at the entrance, giving 50-100 rupees). Therefore, we regretted that, like the thoughtful Germans, we didn’t take a pair of thin socks and a pareo (for me), instead of pants in which we soared in 36 degree heat.

Conclusion: the second day brought only good impressions from visiting Sigiriya and “deceit for decent money” in Matale.

The third day included a visit to a tea plantation and a factory in Giragama, a nursery for elephants in Pinnawala, a wood products factory, and yes... there were also batik and stone factories, which we, on our own initiative, abandoned.

I say right away that there is no tea plantation in Giragama, and there never was, so we only visited the factory and its shop, O. R. 200g costs 570 rupees, BOP 400g-360 rupees, Golden tea 100g-3000 rupees, Silver 100g-2400 rupees. Loose tea can be purchased, nothing like it has been seen, here is tea in bags, wooden boxes, metal tubes - in every shop and at more modest prices. On the way to the elephant nursery (the main road Colombo - Kandy) they asked the guide to stop the bus near the fruit tree, which sold bananas, called local Netrapalan (large, thick, yellow bananas, and very rare. I don’t know the international name, because I heard just the word the locals call it). It's worth a try!!

Elephant Orphanage. It was opened in 1975. Young individuals left without parents or affected by poachers come here. Now 65 elephants live there (although many sources indicate the number of 40 individuals), one of which is 67 years old. This is a place where just from a close distance there is an opportunity to see this animal. No shows, no performances, no stunts, not worth the wait. After walking around the nursery for 10-15 minutes (and there is nothing else to do there), we went to the factory of wooden products.

That mask, which cost $75 at the factory, we did not find more than $35 in souvenir shops (this is not bargaining). By the way, when buying masks, check out their purpose, because. there are masks that cure ailments, which are used to attract money, happiness, etc. , and there are those used in theatrical performances, i. e. for decoration.

Conclusion: the third day, like the first - uninformative, uninformative and uninteresting.

After spending 3 days of vacation, and this is exactly what we can say about the excursions we visited, we arrived at the Royal Palms Beach Hotel in Kalutara. The hotel can be assigned a solid 4, but not five stars. The territory is really large and green, the exterior of the hotel is beautiful, but the rooms are very weak (at least not for a 5-star hotel), damp and really with bedbugs (bitten all legs, asked to replace the mattress). The main contingent of vacationers are couples, married couples and foreign citizens who have chosen this place for 50 years. There are 60 percent of Russian-speaking vacationers. The animation on the beach is very good - a variety of games for every taste, age and mobility, but in the evening... out of 9 days of vacation, only 4 evening programs were seen. The food is varied and tasty (although I want to write like this, when there were a lot of people in the hotel, they fed delicious and different dishes when there were few people (we caught 2 days when there were 30 people in the hotel), the food was scarce), accompanied by almost everyone evening with live music. We do not recommend taking breakfast only (the hotel operates on the All Ink, HB and breakfast system), because there is nowhere to eat in particular (one acceptable Dilan restaurant on the beach and opposite the hotel in a neighboring building restaurant). The ocean is clean and warm. On the beach, everything is like in any country: traders of all kinds of goods and services.

From the hotel you can walk 300 meters to souvenir shops or take a 4 km tuk-tuk to Kalutara (tuk-tuk no more than 300 rupees in both directions), where there is a spice factory, a fruit market and souvenir shops. You can also go to Beruwala, 20-22 km from the hotel (tuk-tuk-1500-2500 rupees), but there is only one difference from Kalutara, Beruwala is a fish village, otherwise there are the same shops and shops. You can go to the Maldives, for two - $1500. But in general, the hotel is boring, and the place of Kalutara is 5 beaches on the coast, 1 excellent sea restaurant.

We have seen many rich and very poor, interesting and not so well-known and not promoted tourist destinations and places of our globe, and we plan to visit many of these places again, but Sri Lanka will definitely not be on this list. Each person, talking about his impressions about the country and the hotel, relies on what he has seen and visited before. I will say that if we went to Sri Lanka after, for example, Turkey or Egypt, then we would probably return with a mountain of impressions and positive emotions, and after Cambodia, Malaysia, Vietnam, Thailand, we can say with full confidence that Sri -Lanka is not worth the money that is paid for it. Although many will not agree with me, because everyone has their own vision of the beautiful, the best and the interesting.