Upcoming Travel: Sri Lanka

Sri Lanka was nowhere on my travel map till Shrinidhi Hande told me about the attractive flight fares to Colombo from Chennai. Initially, I didn’t give it too much thought, but slowly the travel plan started to grow in my head. Finally, it was decided that a short 4 day trip would be ideal to sample the beauty of Sri Lanka and also make use of the great flight rates to Colombo. And personally for me, this presents me with the opportunity of visiting the country where I had spent 2 years of my early childhood.

Nearly all of us in the group got our flight tickets at 4,440 rupees for a round trip. When Shrinidhi told me first, it was about 4,000 rupees, but then the slight increase was hardly a pinch. The offer seemed interesting to a lot of folks and thus there are 10 people in this group who will be headed to Sri Lanka in a couple of days. This is not a backpacking trip, but instead a fairly comfortable and relaxed budget trip.

The plan is to go visit Nuwara Eliya, the tea capital of Sri Lanka in the central highlands, Yala National Park, a UNESCO World Heritage Site and leopard paradise in South Eastern Sri Lanka and soak in the Sri Lankan life at Colombo. In between, we might drive by some of the beaches on the South-Western coastline. Further, there are some temples, monuments, other sightseeing and shopping in the bucket list. For this short trip, we have hired a 12 seater van and booked all of us in bungalows that are more like our Indian homestays. The entire planning, local bookings and a whole bunch of other help was done by Heminda Jayaweera, my Sri Lankan friend. Apart, from being a fellow nature lover and trekker, Heminda is also an ardent cricket buff like nearly all of us Indians.

I am so looking forward to the first 4 days of April, when I will be exploring the island nation of Sri Lanka. Once I am back, I hope to share all my travel experiences and with loads of photographs. I hope you will all be excited to read about my Sri Lankan experiences.