They were also looking for a way too to get from Ella to the Southern coast and we ended up sharing a meal and then sharing a private car to Unawatuna the next day. Sometimes when you meet someone there’s an instant click. We had this with Basti and Jenny. So we decided to not only share a car, but also share a house with them. We initially booked for only 2 nights, but then extended that with another 4. It was nice having a home base for a few days and having someone around to talk to instead of just the two of us (well.. three, since Jace recently started talking quite a bit). It was both inspiring and frustrating to see how much time they spend on their blog. I really wished I had more time for ours. They did give us a few good tips. Thanks guys!

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Polonnaruwa to Kandy by bus was actually very doable! It was the first time we took a local bus and it was actually an interesting experience. Much better than we expected. Of course, we got on at the starting point and each had a place to sit, which made the 4-hour ride much more pleasant. Our (absolutely ridiculous amount of) luggage got locked in the baggage space at the back of the bus, so that was no hassle either. And it was crazy cheap, only LKR508 for the three of us (about €3,30).

Hotels in Kandy Sri Lanka

We didn’t book any accommodation ahead. Accommodation in Sri Lanka is pretty easy to come by. And we didn’t have enough time & too many choices on booking.com. But as with Anuradhapura and Jaffna it turned out well. We got off the bus at the city center. It was raining a bit so we found some shelter, dragged all our bags there and used our phones to check booking.com yet again. We said ‘no, thank you’ to a ton of taxi and tuktuk drivers, but just when we were about to book somewhere, just because we had to, a guy came up to us with a business card from the place called Lakelands Guest House. Since we couldn’t choose anyway, we thought we’d give it a try. It turned out to be a beautiful large colonial house with 6 rooms. Three rooms upstairs are in use by the family and the three rooms downstairs are for rent. We only pay LKR3000, which is pretty good. We have a large double room with a mattress on the floor for Jace. Breakfast is nice, but a bit overpriced at LKR500 pp. Our very low budget allows us to travel long term, obviously if you’re in Sri Lanka for a short vacation and depending on your travel style the costs of a Sri Lankan holiday might be higher but still very affordable.

Things to do in Kandy – touring the lake

Today we decided to take it easy. We actually wanted to go to the playground next to the lake. I read about it in some reviews and it looked really good. Unfortunately, it was closed because of a public holiday and Jace was very disappointed. So instead we decided to stroll around the lake and see what animals we could spot. We actually saw quite a lot! A beautifully colored kingfisher was a bit too fast for our camera, but we got some nice pictures of other ‘wildlife’ that we found near the lake. We found four huge monitor lizards, a pelican, lots of fish, turtles, cormorants, other bird species that we couldn’t identify and lots and lots of bats. There were lots of local people with kids around too. The lake is a nice place to be on your day off

We had a chicken sub and some short eats (small savory and sweet pastries) at one of the many bakeries for lunch and then went back to our guest house so Jace could nap. All in all a pretty good morning. Kandy has a good vibe and we enjoy being here.

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As you may have read (in our blogpost ‘Our introduction of Sri Lanka’) our very first impression wasn’t a very favourable one. But we’ve met a lot of nice people since then and seen some pretty cool things, such as monitor lizards and even elephants!

So far we’ve been in Negombo, Anuradhapura, Jaffna, Polonnaruwa, Kandy, Ella and now we’re in Unawatuna.

Here are a few pictures to show you what we’ve been doing these past two weeks, up until we went to Polonnaruwa. More pictures to follow soon!

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We thoroughly enjoyed exploring Sri Lanka’s Cultural Triangle, although with a little one in tow we didn’t manage to see all the sights. The temples in the Sacred City of Anuradhapura and the medieval kingdom of Polonnaruwa were very impressive. What an amazing serene atmosphere! Unfortunately, we had to give Sigiriya’s Lion Rock and Dambulla a miss because we really wanted to travel all the way north to Jaffna. On the morning we left Anuradhapura, Harindra, the incredibly kind owner of Bevary Holiday Home, found us a big three-wheeler (tuk-tuk) to take us and all of our luggage to the train station. Luckily there was one nearby so we had no problem getting to the station.

Waiting for the train

At the station, I was happy we were leaving from the platform closest to the entrance so I didn’t have to carry everything across the train tracks. We showed our tickets to the guy at the gate, went to the platform a took a seat to wait for the train to arrive.

Oh no! Changing platforms

Twenty minutes before our train was supposed to come there was a different train stopping from the other direction. Because there was some sort of problem with this train it didn’t leave on time and we heard an announcement that our train was leaving from platform two. Shit! Now we had to quickly carry everything to platform two via a tunnel in the station. After some heavy lifting and some help from a german guy who was nice enough to help us carry some stuff up the stairs we made it in time to catch the train.

First class trains in Sri Lanka

The fist class train is nothing compared to the third class train we took from Negombo to Puttalam. They have assigned seating and the carriages have air conditioning. The seats are nice like in an airplane but with more legroom. There are a few screens hanging from the ceiling which show a movie but (fortunately) there was no sound.

We didn’t have to buy a ticket for Jace so he was supposed to sit on our lap the whole way (about four hours). Luckily the seats across the aisle were empty so I could have a seat there and Jace had his own seat. After an hour or so he put his head in Lisa’s lap a fell asleep.

Entering a former war zone

The train ride itself was very nice but also confronting. We would almost forget that only six years ago, in 2009, the war between the Sri Lankan army and the Tamil “rebels” ended. Making our way through the beautiful landscape we were getting in the middle of the former fighting zone. Watching the buildings from the window of the train we could see a difference from the rest of Sri Lanka we’ve seen so far. There were many abandoned buildings that were broken down because of the fighting that occurred in the area. We could see houses with bullet impact damage. This was the first time for both of us to be in a former war zone that had so recently seen fighting.

From Bhuddist to Hindu temples

Something else that amazed us was that there are some big flat open spaces in this part of Sri Lanka. There is some food grown here but not a lot. When the train got a bit closer to the sea we could see some lagunas and more sandy places. Apparently, salt winning was done here before the war started. Arriving in the Jaffna area we could see a difference in the buildings and of course in the temples, the main religion here is Hindu so there are a lot of Hindu temples doted around the landscape. Because of the war, many of them are being rebuilt and many new ones erected. We want to rent a motorbike to explore this different part of Sri Lanka but that is for another blog.

Booking.com

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We decided to split the journey into two days to make it a bit easier for Jace and for ourselves. Luckily last time we were in KL we discovered a great hotel called EV World Hotel Enstek, which is pretty close to the airport and in a nice area with lots of places to eat. The perfect place for a layover.

So we spend one night there and met a cool Czech guy now living in Australia who was traveling alone with his two year old daughter. He was on his way to Nepal to stay in an ashram with his Swedish wife, who was already there. Jace and his daughter Ingrid hit it off strait away and had a great time playing together. We had dinner together and he talked about how he and his wife used to travel the world by sailboat. It’s so cool and inspiring to meet people like him on the way!

Then on October 12th we had our flight with AirAsia to Sri Lanka. Two days of flying in a row are pretty rough. Not so much because of the flights themselves, but the packing, getting to the airport and waiting in the airport are tiring. We’re lucky all the traveling made all three of us a lot more flexible. In the beginning it took Jace about two days to settle, now he doesn’t need any time and just sleeps wherever we put his little Nomad travel tent, or… in the train, on the bus, in the airplane and even in the jeep during a safari

At Colombo airport we met Alena, a German student who was doing her first Asia trip. She had some trouble getting money at the ATM so we offered to share our taxi so she could get to Negombo and try one of the ATM’s there. Turned out she was planning to go to the same hotel we were so it worked out really well. The Marine Tourist Guest House in Negombo was disappointing to say the least (we’ll write some more about that in another post), so when Alena said she would leave Negombo the day after we decided to join her. We discussed locations and since Anuradhapura could be easily reached by train that seemed like a pretty good option.

The next morning we had to rush to get to the train station in time and we had had no time to look for a hotel at our next destination. That was a mistake we’ll try to avoid in the future! The train ride in third class was a lot of fun. The train went really slow and we had plenty of time to take pictures and enjoy the scenery. And everybody on the train was very interested in those weird foreigners with the red haired little boy. We got a lot of attention

The hotel owner in Negombo had suggested we take a train to Puttalam and from there private transport. Great idea, but finding transport turned out a lot more difficult than we thought. Once we got to Puttalam station we got assaulted by tuktuk drivers. Because we had so much luggage we actually had to take two tuktuks with the four of us. They drove us everywhere but where we wanted to go, which was extremely frustrating. We wanted to go to the bus station to find a minibus to take us to Anuradhapura, but they kept giving us ridiculously high prices and kept insisting that it was better to go by tuktuk…. three hours with and already very tired little boy. We didn’t agree. Finally we managed to get the price down to 7000 rupees. Still too much, but all we wanted was to get on the road.

As mentioned we didn’t book an hotel in Anuradhapura upfront. Alena knew the name of a guest house so we asked the minibus driver to drop us off there. Unfortunately it turned out to be a bit too expensive. So while Mau and Jace waited at a hotel terrace with a drink and the iPad, Alena and I went out to scout for a more affordable place to stay. After we’d been to one or two places it started to rain. Luckily we brought our ponchos. After checking out yet another too expensive place it really started to pour and there was thunder and lightning as well. So we waited out the thunderstorm in the lobby of a very fancy hotel where we unsuccessfully used the incredibly slow internet to find a place to stay.

When the rain slowed a bit we decided to continue our search. I was getting a bit desperate. It was getting dark and we had no place to stay. This was exactly why I always want to book ahead! I thought that Mau had probably already decided to take a room at the hotel where he was waiting with Jace, and since it was getting dark we figured we’d try just one more place before heading back. We had to wade through a small river to get there. Later we saw a snake on the road, luckily we didn’t see it before! It didn’t look very promising from the outside and even less from the inside. There was water leaking from the ceiling and Alena and I both had a funny feeling about it. We almost turned around and left, but then one guy that was there finally managed to get his phone working and he called a friend to see if he had any rooms available. Apparently this was a good and affordable place to stay. And… even better, he could take us there in his car! No more walking in the rain, yay! We insisted that we had to get back to the other hotel first to collect Mau and Jace and all our bags (and to see if Mau hadn’t taken a room yet).

In the end we were so lucky we met this guy. His friend’s hotel, Bevary Holiday Home, was really nice and we got a very good deal on the price. Both our good Samaritan and the owner of the hotel restored our faith in the Sri Lankan people!

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