a week in Sri Lanka

ft. tuktuk adventures and the friendliest people in the world

What I’m reading: Brotherless Night by V.V. Ganeshananthan. The perfect book to read for my trip to Sri Lanka, it’s beautifully written and gives some really interesting and important context on the civil war.

What I’m listening to: Pastry Nation: Hype Bakeries on the Rise, by the BBC Food Programme ft. interviews with Anna Higham of Quince and Darcie Maher of Lannan.

What I’m eating: dinner at Western’s Laundry, London (below)

Western's Laundry

Something you should know about me is that I love killing as many birds as possible with one stone. So when I was booking my flights from Auckland to London, I decided to turn my “layover” into a bit of an adventure. Rather than spend several hours in Doha airport, instead I flew via Sri Lanka, a country I’ve always wanted to visit. It was very much a whistlestop tour: I avoided much of the south of the country as it’s monsoon season there at the moment, and instead travelled from Colombo (on the west coast) to Arugam Bay (on the east coast) and back again. 

I landed in Colombo quite late in the evening, and made my way to my hostel in the city (C1 Colombo Fort) - pretty basic, but very close to the train station. The next morning, I had a quick breakfast of dahl, string hoppers (rice noodles pressed into a kind of disc) and coconut sambal, before stomping over to the train station.

I didn’t stay long in Kandy (my first stop) - partially because I didn’t love the hostel and partially because I found the city a bit overwhelming in general. I’m sure there’s plenty to see there, and I did go for a lovely walk around the lake, but I think in my jetlagged state, I wasn’t able to experience it properly.

One of the highlights of my trip was the train from Kandy to Ella. I would recommend booking tickets in advance, as it was quite busy, and it’s a long train - so you’ll want a seat. I booked Third Class Reserved, which was perfect - reserved seating, pretty comfortable, and the windows open all the way so you can enjoy the views. I heard that First Class is air-conditioned, so actually gets a bit too cold - plus the windows are much smaller. Definitely bring snacks, or cash so that you can buy samosas and chai from the guys that wander down the carriage periodically. There are toilets, which in my experienced were actually pretty well-maintained. The best part is that you can go to the back of the carriage where the doors are open, and lean out (but not too far), or sit down and swing your legs if you’ve got short legs (I was born for this). Obviously do this at your own risk - the train does move quite slowly, but there’s trees and buildings and all kinds of other hazards.

Ella is a beautiful if pretty touristy town in the Badulla district. I spent a few nights there in perhaps the nicest hostel I’ve ever stayed in. The bottom bunks at Wild Bee are DOUBLE BEDS (yep, you heard that right), plus there’s a really nice communal area, free breakfast (the French toast slaps), really friendly staff and when I was there the staff made family meal for about 20 of us: a pretty extravagant spread of 7 or 8 different traditional Sri Lankan dishes. 

I also had my best meal of Sri Lanka in Ella, at Clay Pot. I went for a lovely serene solo lunch, but I heard that it gets really busy in the evenings, so you may have to wait for a table. I sat at a table overlooking the train tracks, and had a really excellent curry - but the star of the show was the ghee paratha (with jackfruit samosas as a strong supporting character). 

Clay Pot, Ella

One morning, I hiked up Little Adam’s Peak, which is a really beautiful viewpoint that’s only about a 30 minute walk from town. There’s a big swing up there (random), and a zipline, and a very posh-looking hotel with a swimming pool. I also did a lovely yoga class at 1 World, which I highly recommend. 

After a few very peaceful days in Ella, the tuktuk adventure started. I rented from tuktukrental.com, which I highly recommend. They will deliver the tuktuk to your hostel, and you can pick it up and drop it off at multiple locations around the country. The customer service was excellent, and they’re always available on Whatsapp to help with mechanical issues (of which I had many). They lease the tuktuks from local families, paying them up to 5 times more than they would otherwise earn.

So Ruwan came to my hostel with my chic little tuktuk and my Sri Lankan license. He showed me how to do the basic engine checks, and then we set off on a driving lesson. I immediately felt like I had reverted to my 18-year-old self, learning to drive a car. It was … challenging. It works a bit like a motorbike, except that it’s only 300cc - fine when you’re the only passenger, but a struggle when you’ve got three people in the back and are trying to go uphill. The left throttle has 4 gears (and neutral, which is almost impossible to find), and a handle for the clutch, and the right throttle is gas. There’s a footbrake that’s weirdly high off the ground (I kept knee-ing myself in the chest when I braked suddenly), and the reverse is an enormous lever that you pull up with your left hand. The tank holds 9l, which costs approximately 2000 rupees (around €7) and will take you 100km, after which point you can flip a switch to use the “reserve” tank, which will give you another 20km.

After Ruwan very patiently walked me through the basics, and I had successfully completed a three point turn (engaging reverse nearly made me cry), plus learned how to beep like a Sri Lankan person, he was off on his merry way, leaving me on my own with my new wheels. The first thing I did was drive the tuktuk into a very deep ditch. Three very friendly men came out of the nearest house and helped me to push it out, and then with absolutely no self-confidence and a severely elevated heart rate, I set out on my 130km journey to Arugam Bay. Bear in mind that the speed limit is 40km/h, and you have to stop every 100km to get fuel and let the engine cool down - so the journey took me almost 5 hours. Once I got into the swing of things though, it was actually really fun. 

I spent a couple of days in Arugam Bay, which is a beach town on the east coast. I surfed at Peanut Farm, which is a beach about 5km away (I rented a board and used makeshift wrap racks to attach it to the top of the tuktuk), went to the infamous beach party at Mambo’s and ate some really good vegetarian food at Sri Lankan buffets along the strip (for about 900 rupees, or €3). I stayed at Long Hostel, which is pretty basic, but good craic. We also went to Elephant Rock for sunset one night, which was incredibly beautiful - and if I had longer in Arugam Bay I would have definitely tried to get a sunset surf in on that beach.

 On the day I was due to leave for my longest drive of the trip (180km), the engine failed me. It was making funny noises (to use the mechanical term), and one of the spark plugs kept flying out every time I went over a bump. The mechanic was an angel, though, and fixed what turned out to be an oil leak and two faulty spark plugs, and I hit the road - two hours later than planned and with two very hungover passengers in the back. 

We made it to Ella in good time, and dropped off my first passenger, but the second leg of the trip (to Nuwara Eliya) was the tricky part. You climb almost 1000m in 50km, so there’s a lot of steady inclines - which my engine was not happy about. The tuktuk slowed to almost a halt multiple times, and then did that shuddery stop-start thing where we were CRAWLING up hills. To make matters worse, it had started to get dark at this point, we were still 30km away from our destination, and big gusts of wind were blowing the tuktuk around the place. The headlights on the tuktuk didn’t really work, but the road signs I could see warned of sharp drops to the right. I didn’t dare stop to take a break in case it wouldn’t start again, so we slowly, painstakingly made our way there, arriving slightly shook, and for me, with a cramp in my right hand. 

We were welcomed at the hostel by the dulcet tones of drum and bass blaring from a sound system the size of a minibus, and very cheerful, if slightly unhelpful staff members. I don’t have many good things to say about this hostel (I saw a large rat in the kitchen, which crawled into a wok when it saw me) - I don’t want to name and shame, but if you’re going to Nuwara Eliya, shoot me a message and I’ll tell you so you can avoid it.

 The next day I went to see Lover’s Leap waterfall, and had a very substantial, very delicious breakfast at Cafe Noshers before hitting the road for my last day of driving. I was slightly less anxious about this leg of the trip, because we were descending back to sea level, so the engine didn’t have to struggle so much (although the brakes were certainly put to the test). It also rained for most of the way down, so I had to put the tuktuk in sports mode - attaching canvas curtains to both sides with velcro. By the time I got back to Colombo, I felt like I had properly got the hang of driving the tuktuk, just in time for some of the most hectic roads (lawless roundabouts, big buses going at breakneck speed, a severe lack of indicators/blinkers, constant beeping, multiple lanes of traffic with no apparent system). I made it back to the rental company in one piece though, handed over my beloved tuktuk, and went to a nearby hostel where I crashed for the night before my flight early the next morning. 

General tips:

Once you land in Colombo airport, there are a few different mobile network kiosks where you can get a Sri Lankan SIM card. I bought a Dialog one with 50GB of mobile data (I think for less than €10) which easily lasted me the week, and was invaluable - especially for Google maps.

Uber works in Sri Lanka, but PickMe is a cheaper, more popular alternative. They have both cars and tuktuks, but you have to pay in cash. 

There’s two monsoon seasons that affect very different parts of the country, so make sure you check before you go if you want to avoid the rain.