Travelling Sri Lanka was an absolute revelation. I have travelled a lot in SE Asia and while the masses continue to flock to Thailand, Japan and Indonesia, Sri Lanka is still on the backburner of many people’s travel bucket lists. I was lucky enough to spend 10 days in the country, hitting a new town or city each day and continuously moving.
I have collated all the informaiton I wish that I cad on had before I paid my first visit and I hope it comes in handy for you. If there’s anything I missed or you’d like more informaiton about – get in touch via the comments section.
THE LANGUAGE BARRIER
English very well spoken in Sri Lanka. From 5 star hotels to street food traders and people in the market, you’ll have no trouble conversing, asking for tips and recommednations or even directions should you find yourself lost. If anything, you’ll find yourself in a tuk tuk with an overly enthusiastic driver who just won’t shut the hell up while you’re getting whizzed through town.
MOBILE PHONE DATA
This is something I’m either scoping out on the lead up to the trip or when I touch down. Usually you can find some providers selling their sim cards in the airports (I know it happens at Heathrow – but most of the time it’s far from the best deal). The best deal was funnily enough found at the airport. For just
$10 you get 9GB of date to use within 30 days plus 350rp (£2.50) calls (which you tend not to use in Sri Lanka as it’s diffiult enough trying to find phone numbers for places. This is bloody amazing pricing no matter what country you’re in and there’s great coverage from the major citiies to the highest mountain peaks.
Shoul you miss out at the airport ask your hotel front desk to point you to the closest telecommunications office (that’s what they call phone shops) where I picked up a sim (should you need a nano, they have a cutting device to slice up larger sim cards down into nano size), 6GB + 100rp for just 700rp (£2.50). I was able to get through about 7-8 days with 6GB with very high usage (catch all my Instagram shots at #SharkyxSriLanka.
PHOTOGRAPHING LOCALS
Some countries’ local population are fine with photographs and some are very adverse to it. Luckily in Sri Lanka everyone is fine with it. It also helps that everyone speaks english or knows when you point to your camera to ask for a photo.
When I say they’re fine with it – no one’s angry or pissed off should you take a sneaky snap if the shot presents itself. What I loved was that many of the market traders wanted to get photos of them and their worder friends and then wanted me to join them in photos that they would then take. This reciprocation (which I haven’t found in many other countries) just makes the experience that much more productive and everyone leaves with a smile on their face.
TAKE CASH
I only took a little cash wirth me on this trip, hoping to get by mostly with just withdrawing cash as and when I needed it. What I ended up finding was that many ATMs were not issuing money to foreign cards. I’m not sure if it was just my cards I had on me or was an issue for others. But while I was trying to withdraw money from ATMs in major towns like Kandy and Negombo with no luck, I had more success pulling over in tiny towns with just one ATM.
Be aware that hotels only changing money over form one currency to another or break large local notes down to smaller ones – there are no credit card withdrawls available.
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