Lanka - tips and tricks
I suspect that those people who read reviews are not particularly interested in the author's personal impressions of his trip to a particular country, they are mainly looking for a practical component that will help them on their trip. Based on this, I removed the chronicle of my trip from the review and left only practical advice received on the basis of personal experience.
I. TRANSPORT
A) Vehicles
In Sri Lanka, four types of wheeled transport are available to tourists: a regular taxi, a tuk-tuk (actually also a taxi, only based on a 3-wheeled scooter), Local buses and Intercity Express buses. There are also trains, but more about them later.
There is not much to say about taxis - they are good and, as a rule, new Japanese-made cars and this is the most expensive mode of transport. By the way, in Sri Lanka (as well as in Thailand) I have practically never seen non-Japanese cars. Perhaps this is due to the fact that in Japan - also left-hand traffic.
The most popular brands are Toyota, Nissan, Mitsubishi, less often Suzuki and others. A couple of times I saw Mercedes and even the Chinese Chery QQ. But all the buses and scooters (tuk-tuks) are Indian-made by Tata.
A tuk-tuk is a cheaper and more manoeuvrable form of transport, great for dry weather and short distances for two passengers with little luggage. For comparison, a taxi from Negombo to Bandaranaike Airport (distance - about 10 km) costs about 1300 rupees, and a tuk-tuk - about 700-800 rupees (1 USD = 109 rupees as of 01/02/2011).
Why tuk-tuk is not suitable for long trips, more than 30-40 km. Firstly, it is still slow-moving, its cruising speed is only 40-50 km. By the way, if cars in Sri Lanka are mostly in good condition, then Indian tuks are found in very different conditions, sometimes very “killed”. Such a scooter with a full load on the mountain barely rides.
Secondly, harsh, at least in comparison with the machine.
Thirdly, vehicles in Lanka run, in my opinion, on crude oil, at best on crude fuel oil. Any Kyiv gasoline will seem to you just Super Euro 5 after the Sri Lankan one. The stench on the road is terrible, add here the constant beeping of overtaking, overtaking and oncoming cars - and 10 minutes of driving along a busy highway will seem like a long trip to you. However, in many cases (for example, in Unawatuna), this is actually the only mode of transport that can be used to get from point A to point B.
Local Bus - buses with simple seats, such as in our minibuses and a wide central aisle (apparently intended for standing passengers). Drives fast but stops at every pole.
Riding on such a bus is as follows: the conductor (he is also a ticket seller) gives the “go-ahead” to the bus driver to move off (the fact is that the doors in Sri Lankan buses almost never close, so the conductor makes sure that no one hangs in the door in moment of starting), the driver presses on the gas, the bus breaks off, drives 100-200 meters, and sometimes more, if you're lucky, then sharply presses the brakes, seeing the voting passenger, picks him up and the whole procedure is repeated again. Because of this, the average speed of the bus is extremely low. For example, the road from Colombo to Negombo (according to the map - 50 kilometers, no more) took about 1.5 hours. Often, the driver turns on the full blast of cheerful Indian music, so you won’t be bored on the road.
Intercity Express.
Unlike Local Bus, Intercity Express buses are equipped with seats with armrests, like in airplanes, there are no standing passengers, so the central aisle along the cabin is very narrow. It is so narrow that it is very difficult to move around the bus with backpacks and bags. Intercity Express do not stop at each "pillar", so they move noticeably faster. In addition, there are air conditioners.
Tickets in Sri Lankan buses are always bought only on the bus itself from the conductor. The cost of bus tickets is very low, for a couple of dollars you can travel 110-120 km, that is, almost half of Sri Lanka.
Roads in Sri Lanka within a radius of 50 km from Colombo and along the coastline from Colombo to Matara are of very good, almost European quality. They are smooth, without potholes, with clear road markings, but they are narrow. One lane in each direction. Therefore, driving on such a road is associated with constant jerks, braking, overtaking, etc.
The maximum speed that was recorded when traveling by taxi was 100 km/h. In the mountains, near Nuwara Eliya, the roads are completely broken, all in pits, the average speed does not exceed 20-30 km / h.
About traffic rules. Almost no one observes them, everyone drives at random and continuously honks to each other so as not to get into an emergency. But, nevertheless, I did not see a single accident during my stay there.
There are two types of trains in Sri Lanka: regular trains without seats and high-speed Intercity trains with seats. The train from Negombo to Colombo takes 2 hours, although there are only 50 km between them. In the trains, tickets without seats, whoever went in first, then sat down. Seats are located not like in buses, but along the perimeter of the car. Thus, in the center the space is free. Like the Kyiv metro, electric trains are a favorite transport for many beggars and beggars.
At least a dozen of them passed me in 2 hours of driving. Although sometimes there are funny cases. For example, one man first sang various folk songs for about 20 minutes, playing along on the tambourine, then walked along the car, collected money and went to sing in the next car.
Intercity trains are equipped with seats with armrests, like in an airplane, and tickets are usually sold with seats. Usually, but always. For example, we traveled from Colombo to Kandy in a 2nd class carriage with seats. But from Galle to Colombo they also bought tickets for the 2nd class carriage, but the ticket turned out to be empty. When we entered the car, it turned out that it was overcrowded and all the seats were taken. Thus, we bought the right only to stand in the cabin of the 2nd class carriage. To avoid such a nuisance, you should always check at the box office whether the seats are indicated on the tickets (Are the tickets with seat's numbers? ). If the places are not indicated, you must immediately run and take places as soon as the train is served.
The carriage of the 2nd class differs from the 3rd in more comfortable seats. What are the advantages of the 1st class carriage, it was not possible to find out, due to its absence in most trains.
There are no air conditioners in Sri Lankan trains, all windows are simply opened in electric trains, and in Intercity trains there are additional fans on the ceiling. Unlike buses, train tickets are bought only at the box office, and only on the eve of departure. Prices are comparable to a bus: a ticket from Galle to Colombo cost 180 rupees in a 2nd class carriage. By the way, tickets are checked, so you should not save.
Almost all railways in Sri Lanka are single-track, which means that there are special sidings where oncoming trains can pass. The infrastructure itself is very old, I have a suspicion that all of them. the British also built it, and the Sri Lankans only maintain it in working order. The speed of movement is very low, on average 30-35 km/h.
The fast train from Colombo to Kandy takes 2 hours 45 minutes. And yet, it is more preferable to travel by train, especially in mountainous areas - you will see much more beautiful places. Plus, it's more comfortable.
C) Car and scooter rental
Renting a car IMHO is possible, although rental offices are probably only in large cities. But renting a scooter in such resort areas as Unawatuna and Hikkaduwa is no problem at all, it costs 7-8 dollars a day, but the owners require a passport as a deposit. The cost of 1 liter of gasoline is $1.1 (as of 02/01/2011). According to our compatriots from the Crimea, who took a scooter for several days, when riding a moped along the highway, you should wear clothes that you don’t feel sorry for, because after a few hours of driving, all clothes will be covered with a thick layer of burning and dust, which is almost impossible to wash off. Yes, and you need to drive very carefully, this is not Europe, no one follows the rules.
In addition, in many cases, road signs are only available in the local language, making it difficult to navigate.
II. WHERE TO LIVE
There are a lot of hotels and guesthouses (hostels) of various levels on the South-West coast. BUT: firstly, hotels in Sri Lanka are very expensive, and are comparable in price with Europe. Secondly, they are located in places where it is unlikely that you will be able to swim normally. Mount Lavinia, Beruvella, Bentota, Negombo - in all these well-known resort places, the water in the ocean is muddy, the ocean often storms, and you can only swim in the hotel pool.
According to our compatriots from the Crimea, who traveled all the resort places, the cleanest place for swimming is Hikkaduwa, in second place is Unawatuna. I didn’t manage to visit the first one, only passing through, but I lived in the second one for several days.
How is a guesthouse different from a hotel?
In general, a guesthouse (or hostel) is something like a mini-hotel, sometimes with only 5-6 rooms, sometimes with 10-20 rooms, but without most of the services usually provided in a hotel. Do not be surprised that you will have to clean the room yourself (and sometimes not only in the room, but also in the common corridor near the room), the reception is usually absent here in principle, at night the owner sleeps and cannot be woken up if necessary. Sometimes the guesthouse has a mini-dining room or a restaurant where they serve a continental breakfast, and sometimes they can cook dinner, all this for a fee.
As a rule, a whole room is booked in a guesthouse, although sometimes you can take only one bed, as in a hostel.
What rooms in guesthouses look like: a wide double bed or two single beds, a rack for drying towels, swimwear and other linen, a table, chairs, a separate bathroom with a shower.
Please note: hot water is not always provided, this is a separate bonus. However, at an air temperature from + 22C to + 32C there is no special need for it, although who cares.
There are no TVs in the rooms of guesthouses in principle - TV for a Sri Lankan is a luxury. Although for our person it is completely useless there: there are no Ukrainian and Russian channels there for any reason, at best - a few English-speaking ones, all the rest - in the local Sinhalese language.
But a refrigerator would be useful, but this is also a luxury. In addition, electricity is quite expensive in Sri Lanka, especially if you compare its cost with local salaries. As far as I understood from a conversation with a Sri Lankan, 1 kW costs about $0.15~0.2, and with the growth of consumption, the price grows even more. That is why you will not see ordinary incandescent lamps in residential buildings in Sri Lanka, only energy saving ones.
Air conditioning is provided as a paid option and greatly increases the cost of the room, sometimes 1.5-2 times. If you do not need air conditioning, the owner will take the remote control and you will not be able to use it. In any case, each room is equipped with a ceiling fan, so you will get minimal airflow. I took an air-conditioned room only once - in Negombo, on the first night of my stay in Sri Lanka. In Unawatuna, I took a room without air conditioning (although the device itself was in the room), and I did the right thing, because the temperature in the room never rose to an uncomfortable level. By the way, air conditioners in Sri Lanka are usually used the cheapest, well, very Chinese, and not very cold. I felt this even in Negombo.
What you need to pay attention to when checking into a guesthouse on the coast: the room should not be damp.
Also, be sure to check the presence and condition of the mosquito net around the bed, because mosquitoes and mosquitoes are feisty there.
A few words about housing prices. The most expensive room I rented cost me $30. e, and it was the 1st night in Negombo. However, I booked this room via the Internet from Kyiv, since my plane arrived early in the morning, I wanted some certainty regarding housing. The room had a low-cooling air conditioner, a double bed with a mosquito net, a table, two chairs, a dryer, a bathroom with cold / hot water and a toilet, as well as a table with two chairs in the yard, near the front door.
The room in Unawatuna was rented in a guesthouse in the first line, right on the ocean, on the second floor. The set of furniture is approximately the same, but without the air conditioning option. The entrance to the room was through a wide common balcony into three rooms, where a separate table and two chairs were provided for each room. Very convenient by the way.
The cost of the room is 20 USD. e. per day.
In Sri Lankan hotels and guesthouses, you can and should bargain. What can bring down the price:
- if you come for a long time;
- if you agree to pay the entire amount for accommodation in advance (very effective method);
- if you agree to refuse about air conditioning, hot water and other options.
Thus, you can reduce the price by 20-50%. We met two women from Dneprodzerzhinsk who came for the whole winter and rented a room for only $5. e. a day! True, without hot water and 200 meters from the sea. Another guys from Koktebel told us that they agreed on housing for 8 c. u. e. , also for a long time.
To our left in Unawatuna lived two young German women who came for 2 months. To our right are the British, who came for 3 months. In general, the cheapness of housing and food, as well as the moderately hot climate, contribute to the fact that many tourists, including Ukrainians, come to Sri Lanka for a long time.
True, in the case of a trip for more than a month, you need to get a visa, and this costs money and hassle. Up to 30 days - visa-free stay.
III. NUTRITION
I give the approximate cost of food in cafes and shops.
- Continental breakfast (toast, eggs, jam, butter, fruit, coffee) will cost about $3-4.
- Lunch (soup, rice, fish or meat, salad) - about $10 per person. However, the portions are large.
List of prices for individual dishes:
- local beer: 120~200 rupees.
- soup: 150~300 rupees.
- rice with meat or fish: 400~600 rupees.
- pizza: 400~500 rupees
- desserts: 200~300 rupees.
Be sure to order not spicy food. Sri Lankans love spicy food, and for a European it may seem unbearably spicy. I once inadvertently ordered something local and peppery, and despite the good quality of the dish, I could not finish it.
The cheapest establishment in Unawatuna is Blow Hole, it is on the right side of the bay, under the Buddhist stupa, near the canal. The food quality is top notch.
At the railway station in Negombo, a local man named Sanayka asked me: “What kind of people are in your country? ” I must admit, I was puzzled and could not immediately answer. “Well, there are good people in Sri Lanka, ” he continued, “and what are yours like? ”
I don’t know if Sri Lanka can be called a country of smiles, like, for example, Thailand, but the locals are really very friendly towards foreigners. Despite the fact that the British for them are the conquerors in the past. On the other hand, it was the British who began to grow tea on the island, laid the railway, and asphalt too.
Although Sanayka warned us: be very careful, after all, you are in a foreign country, somehow there was no excitement. That is, there were no fears that in the evening / at night someone would attack or simply climb into a fight, that they would clean their pockets, etc. In Kyiv, I look after my pockets 10 times more carefully than I did it there.
It seems to me that it is as safe there as in Greece, where a girl alone can walk through the whole city at night, and no one will lay a finger on it.
In guesthouses - do not steal. At least I haven't read that anywhere in the reviews. On the beach, flip flops were stolen from a fellow countryman according to his stories, but also not a fact, maybe it was just washed away by a wave.
In trains or buses, Sri Lankans will always move, and for a girl they will even give way. One lad on the bus volunteered to be interpreters in negotiations with the driver and tried very hard to get to know each other, even invited him to spend the night at his house.
Of course, a lot depends on your behavior, they don't understand arrogance, screams, scandals. But a certain degree of caution does not hurt, of course.
Of course, there are also pickers there, mostly tuktuks, and the pickups come down to the fact that “it’s very far to go where you want, let’s give you a ride. ”
Another divorce was at the airport immediately upon arrival.
A local tourist catcher from a travel agency in the airport building offered a taxi for 1500 rupees, then moved out for 1300 rupees, and when we said that we would catch on the street, he said that there were no taxis on the street, only here. Of course, this turned out to be a lie. On the street we bargained for 1000 rupees, then it turned out that it was very cheap.
V. LANGUAGE OF COMMUNICATION
Although Sri Lanka is a former colony of Britain, and English is considered almost the 2nd state language there, very few people actually know it. In tourist areas, in guesthouses - they still speak somehow, but those who do not deal with tourists usually do not understand English at all.
But this does not mean that you do not need knowledge of the English language. It’s just that no one knows other foreign languages there at all, this is not Turkey, but learning Sinhalese for you is not an easy task!
If you need to ask for directions, then after all, 1 out of 10 locals will be able to answer you in English, and some speak very well, although the accent can be terrible.
Taxi drivers, tuk-tukers, station employees usually speak English.
VI. IN GENERAL ABOUT THE COUNTRY
What can be said about the development of the country and people, where the climate is always warm, coconuts ripen all year round, and there are no problems with fresh water? The Sri Lankans are extremely undemanding from life: they do not need to prepare housing and firewood for the winter in order to survive, they do not need to worry too much about food, because the nourishing pulp of the coconut is always at hand, they do not need to carefully collect fresh water, as in North Africa, because it rains in abundance. The fact that the environment did not put harsh conditions for the locals to survive led to the fact that the Sri Lankans are still more children of nature than children of civilization.
Yes, they built huge cult stupas in the Middle Ages, but this is more an exception than a rule.
Today, the Sri Lankans do not particularly show themselves in architecture. For example, in Unawatuna, everything is built up quite chaotically, there is not even a sidewalk near the only central road, which is very annoying. Some villas and restaurants are built close to the water, almost above the water. As a result, the surf washed away their foundation and the steps leading to the water simply fell apart. But this is still trifles: it is much worse that in some restaurants built over the sea, the floor cracked and tilted. But these buildings are only 2-4 years old. It would seem that what prevented you from moving the house 2-3 measures further from the water, or simply making a stronger foundation? Such absurdities are quite common.
Today, if we see any traces of civilization in Lanka, it is mainly due to the British colonizers.
It was the British who laid the first asphalt roads, the railway, and began to grow tea.
On the other hand, it was the Europeans who brought disposable tableware to Sri Lanka, but did not teach them how to recycle after use. As a result, roadsides and ocean shores are increasingly covered with disposable garbage. It seems that in a few more years, and the whole of Lanka will be covered with a thick layer of disposable bottles and other disposable rubbish. However, is the situation in Ukraine better? Here, unfortunately, we are not much different from the Lankans.
VII. WHAT TO WATCH?
I specifically did not write what places I managed to see in Sri Lanka. From my point of view, it is pointless to advise something here - everyone has their own taste. I can only say that all the sights of the Island are divided into natural and architectural and historical. To cover both in a couple of weeks of stay is very difficult and tiring.
Let me remind you that there are no autobahns and high-speed trains in Sri Lanka, so moving every hundred kilometers takes a lot of time.
And yet, if resources are limited, then it is probably better to spend time and effort on viewing the natural attractions of the island. From my point of view, it is better to look at Buddhist temples, for example, in Thailand - there the density of architectural development is much higher.