Not "Advertising Bounty")
Not "Advertising Bounty". 18-28 November 2013
We were in Sri from November 18 to November 28.2013. We went to the Bounty advertisement, to fabulous beaches and exotic nature. We arrived...
We had an individual tour for two - 4 days of excursions and 6 days on the ocean. Rest on the ocean - Unawatuna.
In general, we liked everything, but this is because we are undemanding and love to travel, but in general there were minuses.
Let's start in order. We went with the Panascop operator, Cognitive tour - http://srilanka. panoskop. net/tours/group/cognitive The program was slightly changed for us - we didn't visit Nuwara Eliya, but they say it's very beautiful there.
From the pros - the country as a whole is nothing, you can see. Sigiriya, Polonnaruwa - history. Nothing special, but old ruins, cool. The spice garden where they brought us - the tour was the best and they showed and gave a try and told, but the prices for Ayurvedic preparations there are simply cosmic - $ 100 is such an average price for what they sell. I hope, at least the truth, natural ones help.
Tea sucks so much, I couldn't even understand why it's so valued?
The only tolerable one is with additives, but it is the same as ours and costs the same as ours.
Some of the cons are listed below.
1. The work of the Panascop operator. Before leaving, we contacted the manager Svetlana several times, who arranged our tour and asked to send hotel reservations, other documents and a more detailed description of our stay - to which we were sent links to the description of hotels on booking. com (although I specified that on this site we have already looked at everything ourselves and we do not need information, but documents confirming our residence). As a result, at the Neptune Bay Hotel on the ocean, we were settled in the old part and we did not even know if we had the right to demand that we be transferred to the new part, in which the rooms were better.
Nobody called us back and asked if we received the information and whether it was what we asked to be sent.
After receiving it, I myself called Svetlana - no one picked up the phone. They also asked us to give the contacts of the person who will meet us (in case of an emergency) - they did not give us anything.
2. Guide in Sri Lanka. We got a disgusting guide - Nishan Taranga. He spoke Russian very poorly, and apart from general phrases, it was impossible to get any details from him. He told us very little about the country, history, etc. , and only when we asked him. Basically, during the transfers, he talked with the driver and did not pay attention to us. He never took the initiative to tell us something - we had to start all the conversations. In addition, he did not understand well and we could get the answer “yes” to some question today, and “no” tomorrow, because it turns out that he did not understand us yesterday.
On the day of our arrival, he suggested changing the route, because it would be better in terms of logistics - transfers, etc. We agreed.
As a result, on the first day we didn’t get on a single excursion at all, because we traveled around some small town and looked for a bank, because the guide had to transfer the money received from us to the company - we lost at least two hours. We went straight to the hotel.
As a result, we visited all excursions, but, for example, visiting the elephant nursery was ill-conceived. We learned that if you arrive early in the morning, you can feed the little elephants. Our tour was scheduled for the evening of the first day. As a result (after the guide changed the route for us), we didn’t go to the nursery at all, we rode elephants in another place. We don’t know if the nursery is better or worse, but if the excursion had been originally planned in such a way as to feed the elephants, then we would definitely go only to the nursery - it would be a sea of emotions. Such features are known to local guides and operators and can be done in the best way for tourists.
Also, at all the sights and at all places of our excursions, he imposed on us some local guides, as he called them, in fact, his acquaintances, who supposedly should tell us better about this attraction. They spoke Russian very poorly, almost did not give any interesting information. The guide, who was given to us in the Temple of the Tooth Relic, generally communicated with us in English. That is, people just walked with us, saying words like - here was the pool, here was the palace and that's it. At the end of the excursions, we were persistently hinted at and even directly told that we should give a tip.
Of course, they did not indicate the size of the tip, but with all their appearance they were offended if, in their opinion, we paid little.
When we realized that all these are not guides, but just acquaintances of our guide and probably unfasten our guide, and I specially followed on the last excursion and saw that the local guide gave our guide some part of the money. So, the fears were confirmed.
Our guide on excursions (when there were local guides) followed and was silent, sometimes explaining something if we could not understand his friends. Our guide didn’t go to the cave temple of Dambulla at all - he brought us to the entrance and said, like, walk around yourself. There was no local guide at that time. At first we could not find our bearings, because the caves inside were closed, we did not know when they would be opened, what else we could see, where to go, etc.
Then we realized that, apparently, tickets there were expensive and he decided to save money. This is disappointing as we paid enough to provide ourselves with tours.
A separate question is also about food - we were taken to ordinary tourist cafes, where everything was quite expensive.
The guide and the driver themselves ate in other places separately from us. And if the question - Do you want to eat? We answered that we didn’t, and it’s better to go further as soon as possible in order to have time for everything - they answered, well, then wait for us - we’ll eat quickly.
Regarding the purchase of things and souvenirs - we were taken to very expensive places: a jeweler, a batik factory, a spice garden - just terribly expensive. There were small excursions there - this is good and the guide said that we were not obliged to buy there, but since we understood that we would not go anywhere else and would not buy this at all then, we bought at very expensive prices. He could explain to us and suggest how exactly a product of this quality could be bought cheaper, but he never did anything like that.
In general, the guide, as a local person, could help us save money, but it seems that on the contrary, he did everything so that we would spend more.
When it came time to take us to the airport, it turned out that our driver would take us. The guide wrote us an SMS that we have to pay for being taken on a toll road, or then go on a free one, which is 3 hours more. Since we had already been driving along it before 5 hours and I was wildly seasick - I would not want such a trip a second time. I had to spend money on a mobile phone and call a representative of the operator company and clarify what the hell? The representative figured it out, we didn't pay anything. Another attempt of the guide with the driver to part us - it's a shame (
The guide was given 40 dollars, the driver 20. We read on the forums that the guide is given 20 dollars a day per group. Since we were alone and we didn’t like everything, for a clean three days they gave this amount. Apparently, he thought that they gave little, but did not show it.
There are no complaints about the way the driver behaved on the road, he was driving normally, he seemed to be trying to take him as quickly as possible.
Intermediate hotels were generally ok - geckos lived with us in one, and in the other a monkey stole a bunch of bananas from the room - but this is the local flavor that we were going for, so these circumstances were rather glad and laughed at. So we don't know their "stardom".
The Neptune Bay Hotel left a lot to be desired. Firstly, we were settled in the old part, and not in the new one, and since we did not know where we were supposed to be settled (see point 1 - we were not given any information), we did not know if something could demand. For a bottle of vodka and a polite request to settle us in the new part - we were told that there were no available rooms in the hotel. In our nice room, the door to the shower did not close, and when swimming, you had to hold it with your foot so that there was no knee-deep water in the bathroom. The air conditioner was very loud and turned on and off when it wanted to.
The beds were made dirty, not white at all, we hope, at least washed.
Well, actually, we didn't bother.
Drank one bottle of water from the bar during stay and paid for it. At check out, we were "offered" to pay for another one, and the cost was higher than what was listed for the minibar. They said that we had already paid, the entire hotel staff gathered - they decided something and found out. They said ok, don't pay. What a stupid divorce attempt.
The food, of course, was of a low standard. I have never seen such dirty cutlery in my life. They were not fat, they were dirty. Between the teeth of the forks is dull black dirt. We decided not to pay attention and took our appliances a couple of times.
The dishes were washed very conditionally. Could bring a dirty plate or cup.
Breakfasts are, of course, typically English. Bread, jam, butter and egg. All!
During our check-in, as we understood, the hotel was almost empty, because only 3 couples came to breakfast, including us.
On the fourth day, having gone down for breakfast, we found much cleaner tablecloths and a buffet (before that they brought us portions), we were very surprised and found out that a group of Belgians had arrived. That is, before that we were not considered as people, but everything was done better for them. After a couple of days, the Belgians (who seemed to be Hungarians) left and the dirty tablecloths and portioned breakfasts were returned to us.
What caught my eye all over the country was the shortage of paper napkins. Everywhere they had to ask for more.
Wi-fi was only in the lobby - but even there it was periodically turned off, you had to ask to turn it on.
