A great deal of the trip was spent in the region of the Cultural Triangle due to the mere scope of such historic significance. But that said, on the cusp of bringing that leg to an end, we made sure to experience the highlands or tea country – a true reprieve from the heat and history of the days past. Regardless of your time in Sri Lanka, this is an area you’ll definitely want to see. From Batik factories and elephant orphanages, to lush tea plantations and Horton Plains National Park, there is a different feel to the cooler, higher destinations of the highlands.
We stayed at the Thilanka Hotel in Kandy, Heritance Tea Factory in Nuwara Eliya and Hotel St. Andrews also in Nuwara Eliya, before moving on to Yala National Park.
Yala National Park deserves 2 weeks all on its own. It’s the second largest National Park in Sri Lanka and as I mentioned in my post about Sri Lanka’s Wildlife, it’s chock full of everything from Elephants, leopards, monkeys and wild boar to mongoose, snakes, kingfishers, eagles and crocodiles – most of which you can see directly out your villa’s front door at Chaaya Wild Resort. From Yala, we made our way back to Colombo where we stayed at the Cinnamon Grand hotel. And then it hit us – the trip was over.
We covered a lot of ground, met some incredible people, encountered wildlife that we’ve never seen before and experienced this amazing country for all the grandeur and rebuilding its defined by. Soon Sri Lanka will land on everyone’s top 10 lists for must-see destinations. It’s already happening now. But while it’s affordable, raw, and unblemished by a total footprint of the Westernized world, now is the time to see the Pearl of the Indian Ocean.
UP-ROUTED 