My first international solo trip to Sri Lanka

Little things about my solo trip to the Pearl of Indian Ocean or as they call it, The Teardrop of India✨

Planning a trip is hard, and doing it all alone just increases the work load but we all like it hard, don't we? xD

I went to 8 cities in 13 days. Now most of the people i met while travelling were doing this circuit in clockwise direction but i did in opposite way to be present in Kandy for the 10 day long festival Esala Perahara that happens every year in the month of August in Kandy. Direction really doesn't matter if you are able to come where you want :P

Since I am a pretty stingy(read:broke) person, i stayed at hostels or homestays. I curated the list of places I stayed at here. For the hostels I stayed in, the prices varies from $4-$10 for a night. I booked them either through booking.com or HostelWorld. ( I am Genius Level 2 on booking.com and i love discounts :P)

List of cities i visited in Sri Lanka. Find them here.

I experienced the utmost natural beauty in Sri Lanka. The Polgampola waterfall in Bentota, the beautiful Peace pagoda in Unawatuna, oh and Nildiya Pokuna is the most beautiful cave I have ever seen with the cleanest water. It was so surreal. It costs 3000 LKR for one person but its totally worth every penny! You can find the list of places i visited or wanted to visit here.

Sri Lanka is heaven for surfers. I met a traveller who just spend one whole week at Arugam Bay just surfing and eating. Imagine living like that, just doing one activity that you really really enjoy, just living in the moment.

If you are a sunset chaser like me, Galle Fort in the place to be. One one side of the fort, its just water with no end and on the other side, you see a beautiful cricket ground with young boys practicing. It's a beautiful sight to watch. I could just spend days walking in the old town, watching sunset from the fort every single day and watching boys wearing cricket jerseys practicing.

One of the thing I had to in Sri Lanka was to experience the famous train journey from Ella where you experience the lush green mountains with lot of farms, deep purple coloured cabbages growing and all kinds of beautiful colourful flowers.

What is the point of this world without the creatures living in it? Sri Lanka is doing a great work in rescuing turtles and conserving them, protecting them from the human wrath. There are a lot of turtle hatcheries and rescue centres. You must visit there and see for yourself what turtles have to go through due to plastics in the sea. One of the turtles had to go through a surgery because of eating plastic. If you ever see a turtle or any creature for that matter, just let them be, admire them from afar. Don't touch them like you shouldn't touch human beings without consent. But i guess we humans still need a lot more time to understand the concept of consent.

On the flip side, a visit to New Zealand farms among the beautiful beatiful mountains of Nuwara Eliya will shows you the cows and goats kept in cages and exploited for human wants. Wouldn't recommend going there if you are not ready to face the mirror of how we humans exploit the nature for our greed.

You can always go the strawberry farms near New Zealand farms to eat fresh strawberries and all kinds of desserts made from strawberries instead of drinking milk at New Zealand farms gained from those cows. Even my "no sugar" ass couldn't stop herself from eating a yummy cheesecake at Simply Strawberries at Jagro Cafe.

The huge roads of Colombo with huge and clean footpaths to walk on left a great impression on me. I just spent my whole evening in Colombo walking there with wind gushing through my hair, music playing in my ears, little kids running around, dancing and flying kites at night at Galle Face Beach. I didn't know an evening stroll around the coastline of Colombo would make me feel so free.

I am not a fan of crowded places and i totally avoid them but it was worth getting squished in the crowd to see the procession held to pay homage to the Sacred Tooth Relic of Lord Buddha. The whole city was lit up, people standing in lines for hours just to catch few glimpses of the procession, food stalls near the lake, tourists walking down the lanes to enjoy the festive vibes. Watch the glimpses of festival.

The most tiring part of my trip was travel xD, travelling between the cities but the bus connectivity is so so good in Sri Lanka. So i travelled almost everywhere through buses, saved me a huge amount of money. Trains are more comfortable though but buying a second class ticket also doesn't really guarantee you a seat and it stops at random places a lot of times taking up a lot more time to reach the destination. You can also rent a tuk tuk to drive around or use PickMe app to book a tuk tuk, way cheaper than getting tuk-tuks on road.

No trip is complete without tasting the local food.

Here are some of the food recommendations (I am very biased towards coconuts, i love them):

If you go to cafes, a good meal would cost you 1500-2000LKR (300-500INR) but you can find local restaurants and have a great meal for as cheap as 300LKR.

My whole trip costed me around 40-45k including flights since I booked flights pretty late but 45k for 13 days is still pretty good.

When i will go back to Sri Lanka someday i will definitely visit there by cruise and surf on its shores, maybe ride a tuk-tuk but for now i will cherish the memories and watch the sunset videos i captured until i find more sunsets to watch.