Hi Fiona

You can see my tour review here: http://www.holidaytruths.co.uk/viewtopic.php?t=59832

You are right to assume that doing day trips will probably mean hours sat on a bus - the distances don't look too bad on the maps but you have to allow about 3 times as long as you would expect to get anywhere! We did the Kuoni 7 day Sri Lanka Highlights tour by private car and it was well worth doing. We added on an extra night at the Mount Lavinia at the start to recover from jetlag (well worth doing) and then had 4 days at the Blue Water (this turned out to be a bad idea for us as we got bored quite quickly). Like Judith, we ate in the hotels most of the time - the food was good quality and varied and there was plenty of chance to try the local cuisine.

We have a lot of wonderful memories from our holiday, but the landscape was really the star - some of the views we saw were just amazing! We did lots of different things on the tour and only started to get a bit bored of Budhhas by the end.

Hope this helps, please let me know if you have any other questions.

thanks Corinne
yours was one I read where you said you got bored at Blue Water.When you read about the various hotels there appears to be little info about what there is round about them. Looks like I would have to choose a hotel very carefully. I do like the idea of a tour and stay holiday.

Went on a tour and stay with Thomson 7 years ago. Travelled around for the first week hotels were out of this world. Saw just about everything. Highlight for me was the elephant orphanage. Got bored with Buddhas though. Second week stayed at Neptune Hotel in Beruwela All Inclusive. Fantastic relaxing week after the hectic one of touring. It was all well worth it and would definately do it again.

thanks Polly!

Hi Fiona

I think you might find that there is not much in the immediate vicinity of a lot of the hotels - Sri Lanka doesn't seem to have 'resorts'. The best thing would probably be to get a copy of the Rough Guide or Lonely Planet and see what they say about the various areas. I should think that any hotel that you stay at will be able to organise local trips - we just chose not to do this while we were there.

You are right that we did end up bored at Blue Water. We had chosen this hotel mainly because of its relative proximity to Colombo. We had originally planned to go to the Bentota Beach, which had a lot of activites on offer, but were not sure if the local infrastructure would have been back in place by the time we visited, plus it was more than 3 hrs from the airport. In hindsight, rather than spending 4 nights at the Blue Water, we should have spent 3 nights at one of the Negombo hotels. This would have given us less time to get bored and would have meant that we were much nearer the airport. Kuoni didn't have any Negombo hotels in their brochure when we booked but I believe that they do now. Flights are available daily with Sri Lankan airlines so your beach stay can be as flexible as you want - just bear in mind that some flights go via the Maldives and therefore take a bit longer.

Hope this helps!

Thanks Corinne
I will hve a look at Negombo. I like to get out and about when on holiday- and am not one for eating in the hotel restaurants. I like to try the local ones. Perhaps I may have to resign myself to being "stuck" in a hotel. Mind you I suppose we could combine Sri Lanka with another destination. Haven't looked at that yet!

We came back in February and stayed 4 nights on our return from the Maldives.

Our hotel The Beach in Negombo was very nice and the food was excellent fine dining, no upsets either! The bathroom was different it was all glass with blinds to close for privacy and the bath was huge plus large walk in shower. The staff were very friendly and I would recommend. It was sold as a 5 star and I disagree more a 4. It has a spa and rooms have dvd so I know these things add to the scoring. The best was location 25 mins from airport and the food. A few restaurants about. We booked a private car to take us to the elephant orphange and it was about £50 for the day, we could have gone elsewhere to rise them and stop at shops ect but we did not want as our child had had enough. Worth the 2 hour drive to see the elephants and the guide stayed with us, his knowledge was very good and we had several photo stops on route.

Now the bit I did not like, lots of military about and I felt uneasy. We are fairly well travelled and this is the one place I was not too sad to leave because of the guns ect. I am not happy at sitting on the beach with a boat full of soldiers pointing machine guns at me! I had not expected this at all and when we drove round we saw lots of check points ect. On our return to the airport it was early hours am, our drive told us this was a dangerous time to be on the roads, it was the longest drive of my life. Our drive did not help as he kept pressuring us for our home address and to 'help him' come to England. It all added to my unease. I have to say all the other drivers we had were very good and did talk how some of the Sri Lankan people will harm tourism not help if they try 'rip off' tourists ect. I am led to believe the country was about to have an election and this could have been why lots of military pressence I do not know?

It is a different country and I do not want to put anyone off just to try give my view. If we had gone on a tour we would have seen more of the country I can only comment on the area we stayed and 1 day trip. 4 nights is not a long stay but I am so glad we were not booked for 1 or 2 weeks I would have gone mad staying in the hotel all the time and our son was too young to tour for days.

I am planning on returning. On my last visit we went on lots of day trips and spent lots of time on mini-buses. The main highlights were the elephant orphanage, Kandy, tea plantation estates, wildlife, Temples, Colombo and of course the friendly people. Staying somewhere like Negombo, it is easy to spend an afternoon wondering around the town and there are also the restaurants to visit in the evening. Colombo is also fairly accessible and that's easily a day wondering around / shopping.

This time though I will do things differently as I like planning things. Remembering that the cost of a two week package holiday is not that much more than just a flight and accommodation costs are very reasonable, I would choose somewhere close to Colombo, stay in the resort hotel for the first day and then use the excellent train network to travel around. Before leaving the UK I would book a hotel in Kandy and somewhere like Jaffna and have a look around this part of the island for a few days. Taxis are fairly cheap even for a whole day and from these towns/cities there will be lots to do and see, including I think, the elephant orphanage.

Mercury Direct http://www.mercury-direct.co.uk have just sent me a new brochure called 2006 & 2007 'longhaul holidays'. They have the usual tours but they also offer a few days in Kerala, India, in conjunction with Sri lanka, which looks good. In another of their brochures they also offer add on's to Dubai, Doha etc., which would break up the two weeks.

Hope this helps.

thanks you two- very informative answers and it has given me a lot of food for thought. I have to say I am trying to keep an open mind but am swaying against a trip, particularly after the latest incident where those soldiers were killed and a couple of British tourists were injured. I AM going to send away for the Mercury brochure though. After all, I wasn't put off going to Bali!

Fiona

Don't let the fact that there is a strong military presence in Sri Lanka put you off visiting the island. The problem with the Tamils has been going on for a long time now and tourists have rarely been a target. When I visited a few years ago there were soldiers at road junctions etc., after a few days it actually made me feel more secure.British people are not used to seeing guns but you only have to fly from LHR these days to see armed police walking up and down, unfortunately it 's now a part of our normal life. I think there is more danger in countries in and surrounding the Malaysian peninsula where tourists are the target but that doesn't stop us going there (as you stated you went to Bali after the bombing).
Give it a try, it's a beautiful country which really needs to attract tourism again after the terrible destruction from the Tsunami.

Judith
I know you are right! If we don't go next year it will be because I already have an impossibly long list of "must visits".

I know the feeling, the list never goes down as I add somewhere else after each trip.

am also thinking of going to Sri Lanka and wondered if anyone had stayed in Bentota?

well we have decided for next year and are not going to Sri Lanka.I 'm sure we'll go sometime though. Have just been looking at our Sri Lanka photo album.I love the one of the day old turtle! Has anyone got any photos they can add?

What's it like ?

cheers

whats the best way to take money to Sri Lanka? half Sri Lankan rupee and half US dollers traveller checks?

thanks

We took sterling cash and travellers cheques and exchanged at the airport on arrival with no problems. I wouldn't bother taking dollars unless you live in the USA.

no not in the usa. no need to get Sri Lankan rupee before we leave the uk?

I'm not sure that you can get rupees outside of Sri Lanka. It was honestly no problem to get them at the airport. There were a number of exchange desks in the Arrivals area - we changed £100 cash and £100 Travellers cheques as soon as we arrived and didn't need to change any more while we were there, although we would have been able to do this at our hotels if necessary.