The Temple of the Sacred Tooth Relic in Kandy opens every day at 5:30 AM, and it closes at 8:00 PM, but the inner sanctum where the relic is kept is not available all the time. It opens only when certain rituals are happening. If you want to see the golden casket with the tooth,…
Bundala National Park is a big winter stay place where you can easily get a good look at greater flamingos, pintail snipes, broad-billed sandpipers, and a range of terns. The park’s salty, brackish lagoons bring in thousands of waterfowl every year. Because it is an internationally recognised Ramsar wetland, Bundala is a key last stop…
The best local snacks to eat on a Sri Lankan train are spicy roasted peanuts, vadai (deep-fried lentil fritters), and freshly cut mango with a chilli salt dusting. Vendors regularly stroll through the carriages with these treats, like little moving stalls that never really stop. Munching on snacks from the train vendors is a key…
Arugam Bay, set on the island’s southeast coast, is widely known as Sri Lanka’s premier surfing spot. It has world-class point breaks that keep pulling in international professionals and casual wave riders, who just want good sessions. The main draw is Main Point itself, basically the centre attraction, with a right-hand break that gives long,…
Traditional Sri Lankan Arrack is only distilled from the fermented sap of unopened coconut flowers, locally called toddy. This 100% natural spirit has no artificial additives; it leans on a centuries-old extraction process, passed down without shortcuts. The toddy tapping process requires skilled artisans to walk on ropes that are suspended between coconut palms to…
Inside the star-shaped Jaffna Fort, visitors can wander through the wide coral-stone ramparts, the wet moats, and those eerie, bony skeletal ruins where Dutch-era churches, prisons, and administrative buildings once stood. It was originally built by the Portuguese in 1618; later, it was expanded by the Dutch, so now it remains the second-largest existing fort…
World’s End is a dramatic, sheer cliff inside the Horton Plains National Park. It has a sudden, frightening vertical drop of about 1,200 metres, or 4,000 feet. When you reach the edge, you get an unmatched line of sight, running across the tea country all the way towards the southern coastline, as long as the…
Having an open tattoo that shows the Buddha, or any other Buddhist deity, is seen as very disrespectful in Sri Lanka, and it is also handled harshly, with strict penalties that can lead to immediate arrest, visa cancellation, and deportation. Sri Lankan law seems to guard religious sensitivities very actively, so Buddhist depictions are treated…
In Sri Lankan restaurants, the usual tipping manner tends to be to leave about 10% of the entire bill in cash, right on the table, provided the service was good enough. Still, you really should look at the receipt first, because mid-level and higher-end places quietly tack on a mandatory 10% “Service Charge” to the…
The Cultural Triangle is a fairly tight area, geographically speaking, in the middle plains of Sri Lanka, and it holds together the island’s most important ancient historical and religious places. The three points that make up this triangle are drawn from Anuradhapura in the north, Polonnaruwa on the east side, and Kandy towards the south….
