Sri Lanka Tour - 8 Days

Sri Lanka Few places have as many Unesco World Heritage Sites (eight) packed into such a small area. Sri Lanka's 2000-plus years of culture can be discovered at ancient sites where legendary temples boast beautiful details. Kandy:Kandy is located at the center of Sri Lanka and is generally recognized as the island nation's cultural capital, and was declared a world heritage site by UNESCO in 1988. It is Sri Lanka's second largest city located in the mountainous center of the island. A cooler climate and smaller size make it much more pleasant and accessible than Colombo.The city has a compact downtown area surrounded by a beautiful tropical rain forest hill country on all sides with exotic animals such as monkeys running around in the wild. The downtown area is really crowded and polluted by day, and filled with some of the world's most aggressive touts by night, but it is also a major shopping destination where all kinds of goods imaginable can be purchased at surprisingly low prices. There are also numerous bakeries, offering delicious local treats all over downtown. Overall Kandy is a great place to experience Sri Lankan culture and cuisine surrounded by a beautiful natural environment.Kandy is renowned for the great Kandy Esala Perahera, held over 10 days leading up to the Nikini poya (full moon) at the end of the month of Esala (July/August), but it has enough attractions to justify a visit at any time of year. Some of the Hill Country’s nicest boutique hotels nestle in the hills surrounding Kandy, and the city is a good base for exploring the underrated terrain of the nearby Knuckles Range. Nuwara Eliya:Nuwara Eliya is a city in the Hill Country of Sri Lanka. Its temperate climate gives the city a very different feel from other parts of the country and, along with the colonial architecture, has earned it the name 'Little England'. While most British visitors struggle to recognise modern England in Nuwara Eliya, the toy-town ambience does have a rose-tinted English country village feel to it, though it comes with a disorienting surrealist edge. Three-wheelers whiz past red telephone boxes. Water buffalo daubed in iridescent dye for the Tamil Thai Pongal festival mingle outside a pink, brick Victorian post office. A well-tended golf course morphs seamlessly into a rolling carpet of tea plantations. The dusty and bustling centre of town is a thoroughly Sri Lankan tangle, but scratch the surface a little to reveal colonial bungalows, well-tended hedgerows and pretty rose gardens. Bentota:Bentota is a tourist attraction, with a local airport (Bentota River Airport) and a handful of world-class hotels. It is a destination for watersoprts. Bentota also delivers an ancient art of healing called Ayurveda. Bentota is famous for its toddy production, an alcoholic beverage made out of coconut nectar. It also has a turtle hatchery, located on Induruwa beach.Protected from noisy Galle Rd by the sluggish sweep of the Bentota Ganga, the ribbon of golden sand that makes up Bentota beach is a glorious holiday sun-and-fun playground. While it’s primarily dominated by big package hotels, it also has a number of smaller places catering to independent travellers. Colombo:Colombo (Sinhala: ????, Tamil: ????????) is the largest city and the financial and commercial capital of Sri Lanka.Colombo is a huge, sprawling city, which can be visited any time of year due to its tropical climate. The heat is often excruciating, and traffic and pollution intense. These combined and without careful planning Colombo can easily become a nightmarish experience for an average traveler. To avoid this, do not carry heavy luggage, do not plan to walk any significant distances and take measures to deal with the heat and/or rain, such as bringing ice water, sunglasses, plastic slippers, sunblock, umbrella etc.