ADVENTUROUS SRI LANKA IN THE MIDST OF CRISIS

The bookings were done and the payments had been made. Then few days later, news came – “Sri Lanka in crisis. Protests are happening, shortage of goods and materials”. I anyway went ahead with my 5-day exhaustive itinerary to cover beautiful country Sri Lanka. My wife was also up for it since it was a surprise trip for her. I didn’t want to stay at Colombo or Kandy which most tourists opt to go because I wanted my stays in the midst of nature.

So, we landed at Colombo airport in the afternoon and the cab driver was waiting to take us to our 1st destination - Sigiriya. The moment we sat, he said that we have to travel a lot on all these days. It was a 5-hour drive from Colombo and mostly everything was shut since it was national holiday there. We stopped in between to cherish some local tea and snacks. Around dinner, we reached to Hotel Sigiriya – cozy atmosphere, brilliant rooms and spectacular view of the Sigiriya lion rock itself from the pool. We ate and slept because we had to wake up early in the morning for the trek at the Lion Rock. We checked out and started our trek – breathtaking overview of the nature made us forget about all our tiredness. Folks, carry plenty of water with you.

Our next destination was Nuwara Eliya which is a hill station. On our way, we covered Elephant Orphanage and Dambulla cave temple – it was again a short trek but by that time my wife had got really tired so we quickly wrapped it up and headed back to our cab. On hills, we stopped by plantation to drink fresh sip of tea, bought goodies for families and reached our hotel in the evening after 5-hour drive. The ride to the mountains was good. We explored shops around for a bit and decided to relax in the hotel.

The next day was tight as well. We woke up early morning as usual, packed extra clothes for water sports and hit the road again. My wife is a little bit scared of water so she was shouting as hell while doing the sports, but I really enjoyed it (not to see my wife scared but water sports). We changed the clothes for our next destination Galle - mesmerizing European architectural colony. We strolled around a bit, saw lighthouse and international cricket stadium and finished with lunch in a beautiful café by the sea.

On our way back to hotel, we had gone for boat ride in Madhu River where we saw mangrove forests, stopped over in an island and drank freshly prepared Cinnamon tea made by an elder tribesman and did a fish spa. After that, we visited a hatchery farm to see various species of turtle. For our last night stay at Sri Lanka, I had booked a private dinner by the garden at Cinnamon Bey. I had thought this would be a little over on top in addition to the surprise trip given my wife’s nature, but after her reaction I think I must do exactly opposite of what she says sometimes. We packed our bags for our morning flight to Delhi, relished the memories clicked during our trip and started planning to create some new ones.