хороший, прекрасный ресторан, уютные номера, но шумно с улицы nice, lovely restaurant, comfortable rooms, but noisy from the street

Just got back from Sri Lanka.
I’ll tell you about the country: Marvelous, wonderful, emerald green, bright fruity, turquoise-sea, salty-warm, soulful, mountain-waterfall, bewitching with landscapes... You can find many more words, but you will understand all this only if you drive along country. Sitting in a beach hotel you will not understand anything, you will see only palm trees, sand and incredibly delicious seafood. For some, this is enough, but, as for me, if you really climb into such a distance, then you should grab the impressions to the maximum!
I'll tell you about the ticket: I accidentally found Panascop on the Internet. I didn’t know anything about her, in the reviews on travel sites there were only a couple of minor mentions. But the prices for tours are reasonable. I took a risk. I chose an individual tour - immediately upon arrival 4 days of excursions by car with a driver and a Russian-speaking guide (the program was approved with changes at my request) + 8 days of the beach. Everything was agreed on an Internet during the correspondence (hotels, excursion program, dates, air tickets booked, room class, etc. ). I came to them at Panascop, paid for 20% of the tour (the remaining 80% should be paid upon arrival to the host Destination Serendib in Sri Lanka). I paid for the tickets separately. With a contract and a voucher, I left home satisfied. And the next day it started: at first there were no “booked” and paid tickets for the agreed days - I had to shorten the trip, then the “booked” and paid rooms at the beach hotel ran out - I had to take a deluxe suite, which is more expensive, then I ordered medical insurance from them ( it was supposed to be handed over by a guide at the airport) - the guide was simply surprised by my question about insurance (Destination Serendib didn’t even warn him about it). Air tickets were issued 5 days before departure, it turned out that we arrive in Sri at 2 pm, and the excursion program is designed in such a way that you need to start excursions in the morning. In Panascop they said - it's not scary, you will coordinate with the guide on the spot, move, tighten, change something. But I wanted exactly the agreed amount of excursions! Arrived, the guide met. We found him by a miracle - on the plate and in the documents he had completely different surnames !! ! The last straw (after the lack of insurance) was that the guide was from a completely different company. You see, the Destination Serendib host ran out of guides and transferred us to another company. And as it turned out - thank God! This is where our misunderstandings and deceptions ended. We got a wonderful guide! Specialist in his field!!!

About excursions: Individual tour - driver Chemel on Toyota Carola with kondey, Sri Lankan guide Sarat, who speaks fluent Russian, and my husband and I. We were promptly greeted, in the car and the JOURNEY began!! ! Candy (elephant riding, the royal botanical garden, the temple of the Tooth Buda - you must go there at dawn when the doors of the Tooth vault open, the Peak Hotel with a beautiful view of the city... ), tea plantations and a factory, rafting on a mountain river, Ramboda waterfall , overnight at the Ramboda hotel (!!!! ) at the foot of the waterfall, swimming in the waterfall at dawn, the high-mountain resort of Nuwara Eliya, a 3-hour trip through the mountain range above the clouds by train (one of the most vivid impressions !!! ), Ella , again the land of emerald mountains and high waterfalls, elephants, monkeys, huge monitor lizards, Tissaharama, a night in a hotel on the shore of a marvelous lake with blooming lotuses and crocodiles, participation in a Buddhist religious ceremony in the Katagarama temple, the southernmost lighthouse of Asia Dondra....Many more amazing and new things… Special thanks to our guide Sarath Jayatilaka!! ! Thanks to him, we learned a lot in addition to the program: customs, traditions, about the life of ordinary people, from the history of Buddhism. And how many delicious and new tried! He stopped the car all the time along the way, we got out - here are the most delicious pineapples in the country, then we eat - here is the best mango, then - buffalo milk, further - the area where the best cashews are grown... coconut milk....we drank the juice of some marsh plant , the name, which they didn’t even remember... In addition, he adjusted our excursion program according to our desire, even replaced one of the hotels with the best and in a beautiful place under the waterfall. Sarat has its own travel agency that organizes individual tours of any duration in Ceylon, books hotels, makes programs, etc. Its coordinates: +9.773-990-881, +9.071-70-72-505, lantekgroup@gmail. com
About the weather: we were from 2311 to 512. According to the forecast for all this time it was +29, showers and lightning. During this time, it rained once in the evening, and once in the middle of the night there was a tropical downpour. In the morning, as if nothing had happened. They never even got an umbrella. There were days when it was partly cloudy. But it was much nicer than the scorching sun. Humidity is high - swimwear on the balcony does not dry out overnight. Mosquitoes are only in the evening, but not many, you have to splash open places. I was bitten, my husband is gone. In the rooms, fumigators are almost everywhere and no one nibbles there.
About the food: delicious, but if you don’t warn it, it will be spicy. There is almost no menu in Russian anywhere. Learn a minimum of product names. We saw how people suffer when ordering dishes (the waiters very few understand Russian !!! ), and then they are very surprised at the order they brought. Be sure to try the fresh seafood. As a rule, in the evening in front of restaurants there are ice showcases with fresh fish, krkevetuli and lobsters. You choose, they are weighed and cooked. The menu price is for 100 grams of raw product. Not a penny, but cheaper than in our stores and even more so in restaurants. Fruits are a delight! Feel free to buy, wash under the tap and enjoy!! ! Try everything, even if you don't know what it is - it's more fun. Even if it's not tasty, it's interesting! Alcohol. There are no local wines. There are French, Italian, Australian - 20-25 dollars a bottle in a restaurant. Alcohol is sold only in special stores, which are not so many. But all the locals know where the alcohol shop is. More or less you can drink local red rum (preferably in a cocktail with juice) - 15 dollars a bottle.
About hotels: During the excursions we lived in 3 hotels two stars for one night. They settled tired without legs, got up early and left. Therefore, the class of the hotel does not matter at all. The beds are good, clean, the rooms have everything you need. The hotel locations are excellent. What else do you need for one night? We had a hotel on the beach in Unawatuna - Taproban Beach House. First line, excellent cuisine, a restaurant right on the beach, rooms with air conditioning and a fan, clean, excellent four-poster bed, wooden furniture, plasma, well cleaned, comfortable. Well, Booking is a very accurate description and photo. Everything is truly described. We had a deluxe, but the view from our room number 8 is lousy, the room is extreme above the road - the noise of cars and voices. Moreover, something was being built under the windows for three days. If it wasn't for that, everything is great. But the sea is a delight! Very salty, warm and calm. In Unawatuna, the waves are small, you can swim without fear from dawn to dusk.

About the rest: kind and friendly people, almost everyone speaks English, children have white school uniforms - very festive and elegant, cars have right-hand drive, triple and quadruple overtaking is the norm, cars move completely chaotically - but they haven’t seen more than one accident, roads in the villages are better than we have in big cities, very beautiful women, marvelous jewelry, warm nights, cute little lizards on the walls in the rooms, fresh fruits (papaya, pineapple, watermelon, red banana) for breakfast, coconuts growing on beach, and bananas along the roads....
Conclusion: who loves "all inclusive", animation, sleep until dinner, discos until the morning, swimming pool and 10 Russian channels - you are not here. You can, of course, but it's wasted money - it's 2 times cheaper in Turkey. To Sri Lanka for beauty, adventure and discovery! I really want to go there again. . .