Do not mess with single guides
We do not recommend contacting single guides. We arranged a 3 day tour of Sri Lanka's Cultural Triangle with Madu de Silva. We spent only one day with him, and then he left for his grandmother's funeral. We were left without a guide with a driver who does not speak Russian and speaks a little English. His English was of little use, since he did not say anything, but silently drove us from place to place with a rather dismissive attitude. Constantly there was not enough time for sightseeing, as planning was absolutely not a concern. At the same time, he managed to call in on his business. On December 31, we were left without dinner, as the driver was supposed to arrange a festive dinner for us and pay for us, but disappeared somewhere. But this was a trifle compared to the 4-hour road of full extreme. We read that there is a dangerous traffic in Sri Lanka, but we had no idea that it was so much! We counted every minute and at every overtaking we thought that life would now end. We are both drivers and have seen everything in Ukraine, but it exceeded all our expectations. They left a cap in the car for the night and in the morning it disappeared. The driver could not explain her disappearance, the cap was rare, we suspect that he kept it for himself as a souvenir. They didn’t want to quarrel with the driver, since life is more expensive and they themselves were not ready to stay in the center of the island.
Prior to this trip, Madu organized an excursion for us in the open ocean to see whales and dolphins. What they called the ship turned out to be a small vessel with 43 people stuffed into it. We went out into the open ocean in a storm, waves up to two meters high. Whales were shown to us only in the picture. Two hours later, after the ship had been splashed by more than half of those present and wet from the flooding waves, a riot began, and people demanded an immediate return. The captain stubbornly did not want to return, but promised to show dolphins and turtles. After a successful 30 minute negotiation, we came to a compromise that he keeps the money and delivers us alive to land. Two more hours of turbulence and we have never been so happy with the ground under our feet. Then life slowly improved, as Madu made amends for this incident with two interesting excursions.
In general, Madu is not a bad guide, and while he was with us, everything was fine. Not to be compared with other Sri Lankan mountain guides. In his absence, he organized a guide for us in Sigiriya, who, apart from the words “guys” and “look” in Russian, could not really say anything, but he asked nicely for a tip.
The final impression of Sri Lanka was fixed by the return flight home by Sri Lanian Airlines. Before our flight, they hastily replaced the windshield in the plane and when we took off the glass almost fell out and we had to make an emergency landing and wait for the next plane.