Sri Lanka

Keith, Hugh, William & I spent 2+ weeks in Sri Lanka in January & February 2017. We all landed in Colombo (it’s the international gateway into the country) and stayed around Colombo for 4 or 5 days but Hugh arrived a week later than us and met us in Kandy.
The featured photo (above) is a tea plantation near Eliya Nuwara with Keith, Hugh and Will in the distance. A collection of photos taken in rough chronological order in Sri Lanka

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Video — Greeting Hugh as he Arrives in Kandy and we unsuccessfully negotiate a tuktuk to our hotel A suggestion for travelers to Sri Lanka: don’t spend your valuable travel time in Colombo. The charm of this country is not in its largest city and capital. It is a large, noisy Asian city with only a few attractions. The fabulous beauty of Sri Lanka is it’s friendly people, beaches, ancient cities, tea plantations and spectacular hill country. However, I got stuck for 5 days in Colombo waiting for my 3 traveling buddies and discovered Mt. Lavinia which is quite a distance from the main train station about 100 meters from a respectable beach and 1 km from a commuter (train) station. I stayed in a guest house that I highly recommend called the Ivory Inn about as close as you can get to The Best Exotic Marigold Hotel without traveling to Rajasthan. The airport is 45 minutes from downtown Colombo. Most travelers will want to go to the main train station (“Fort Colombo”) which the locals just call “The Fort”. Take Bus 187 and ask the driver to drop you at the Fort — Bus 187 is across the street from the arrivals gate and departs when it is full. If you take my advice and head to the Ivory, you will need a tuktuk for about 200Rs or taxi. 150Rs = 1 USD from the Fort.

Our travel route (by train & car)

Tea picker in highlands tea plantation near Ella

The Umbrella Girl

Uniformed school girls near Sigiriya — the Sri Lankan school system follows the traditions of its old British master

Friendly Lady near Anuradhapura
Sri Lanka’s Ancient Irrigation System Discussion of Sri Lanka has to include its incredible history. I was astonished by the ancient irrigation system created hundreds of years ago (dating back to the fourth century BC) to harness the uneven rainfall in the country — monsoon rains around the perimeter and dry areas in the interior. The philosophy of the water conservation methods were depicted by the words of Parakrama Bahu I, 1153–1186 CE: “Let not even a drop of rain water go to the sea without benefiting man”. The system includes dams, dikes, canals, underground pipelines and lakes called “tanks” — 163 major tanks (reservoirs), 2,617 minor tanks, 3,910 irrigation channels, 328 stone sluices and 168 sluice blocks. The sluices were constructed to equalize the water across the country. Probably no other country can exhibit works so numerous, and at the same time so ancient and extensive, within the same limited area, as this island.