Planning for Sri Lanka

So it's been more than a year since my last post. We have not stopped travelling, just that procastination was at an all-time high. Since India, we have been to Chengdu in China, Yangon and Bagan in Myanmar, back to UK (including a glamping trip), Bali, a few local destinations and most recently to Sri Lanka. Our boy is now 7, has started Standard 1 and hence has lost his long curls to school regulations (*cries*).

Since Sri Lanka is still fresh on my memory (we got back recently), I'll post that trip first and hopefully will cover the other previous trips later.

As mentioned, proscatination is still going strong for me. I only booked the flight tickets to Colombo late November. The day before that, I had no idea where to go for our usual December holiday. I was contemplating Korea or Australia (as we have never been on that continent) but flight tickets were already ridiculously expensive. The cheapest flight ticket then at less than RM1k was to Colombo (on Air Asia of course). Although Sri Lanka was never on top of my to-go list, it was there anyway.

As the days passed and I spent more time researching, Sri Lanka became more and more like that exotic and beguilling place that I had to see. Lonely beaches, quirky cafes, abundance of wildlife and epic train rides - I looked forward to 16th December 2016. The fact that it was a less trodden path was the icing on the cake.

So here's the lowdown on our planning for the trip:

1) Itinerary

I ony knew that I wanted to see Galle. Yala National Park was always at the back of my mind for the safari but the distance was kinda off-putting. But when I saw that we could break the travel from Colombo to Tissa (the base to see Yala) in Galle, Yala went in straight to my itinerary. I know that most travellers would also go to Kandy/Ella/Nuwara Eliya (one of the most delightful names of a place that I have heard), but we were at Munar hill station with its tea plantations just 2 years ago so I thought that it would be best to stick to the coastal areas in Sri Lanka. Our planned route turned out to be like this:
16th Dec - Flight to Colombo. Overnight Colombo
17th Dec - Travel to Galle. Overnight Galle
18th Dec - Galle
19th Dec - Travel to Tissa. Overnight Tissa
20th Dec - Yala National Park
21th Dec - Travel to Colombo. 11pm flight back to Kuala Lumpur

2) Transportation within Sri Lanka

Something new that I learnt - Si Lanka is expensive, at least compared to India and the other Asian countries that we have visited. Partly it could be because of the weak RM against USD. Initially I was contemplating to hire a car with a driver for 3 days for the travels between Galle, Tissa and Colombo but we were quoted between USD275 and USD330 (approx. RM1,200). I also checked with the hotel in Tissa (Shangri Lanka Village) that we were planning to book and it turned out that they do provide transfers and we were quoted Rs9,000 (RM270) for Galle-Tissa and Rs16,000 (RM480) for Tissa-Colombo.

In normal circumstances, that would be expensive by our standard but it was definitely cheaper than getting a car for the whole 3 days and better time-wise and for Irf's comfort than taking the bus. For our whole days in Galle and Tissa, tuk-tuks would be our best friends.

For Colombo to Galle, a train ride was the foregone conclusion. I will write a separe blog post on this.

3) Accommodation

Because we booked only in late November, our options were limited. Small hotels/guesthouses with decent ratings on booking.com and Tripadvisor were few and far between and those that were still available had prices that made my jaws drop. But desperate times called for desperate measures.

We stayed at Moss B&B in Colombo, Mango House in Galle and Shangri Lanka Village (nothing to do with the Shangri-La) in Tissa. Again, I will write a seperate blog post on our accommodation.

4) Visa

Applying Sri Lankan visa was easy, especially compared to the process for India and China visa.  Application can be made online via http://www.eta.gov.lk/slvisa/. It took all of 5 minutes, and a further 5 minutes for the visa to be approved. Cost USD35, free for children.

I printed the approval email but the immigration staff did not even ask for it. My passport was scanned and a small sticker with the visa details printed and stuck in my passport.

5) Money

I had earlier read that it was not easy to get Sri Lankan Rupees (LKR) from money changers in Malaysia. Many travellers bring in USD and exchange to LKR at the airport in Colombo itself - the rates there were supposed to be the better ones. While changing money to USD at the Curve, I found out that the money changer had LKR to sell so we bought both USD and LKR.

In Tissa, we ran out of LKR and USD and thought of changing some Singapore Dollars (SGD) that we happened to bring. Found out that they did not buy SGD so I would advise (for Malaysians) to bring in USD only. We withdrew money from the ATM machine where the transaction charge was LKR300 (approx. RM9). Don't forget to activate your debit card for overseas use before your travels (can easily be done on Maybank2u).

Together with travel insurance and the packing of a DIY first aid kit/medicines and basic provisions (mini cereal boxes, milk, biscuits, tuna in a can, maggi in a cup), those pretty much summed up the planning for this trip.