Lorna, David & Gillian
England, February 2013
What did you like most about Sri Lanka?
Excellent tour, lots of variety, good guide [Niroshan], suitable accommodation, interesting, friendly people, not too touristy.
What did you like least about Sri Lanka?
Humidity.
Long flights.
Any other comments?
We've now been back from Sri Lanka for 11 days. I can confidently report that I can tell a sleeping Buddha from a dead one, know the exact constituent parts of a moonstone, can identify 3 of the 4 indigenous monkeys (sadly the mouse monkey evaded our notice) and even feel enthusiastic about birds. However I fear that I shall fail my exams on the exact genealogy of the early Sri Lankan rulers.
Seriously, it was a great holiday and exactly what we wanted. I won't extoll the delights of Sri Lanka to you as you know them already, but I want to tell you that the organisation on the ground was excellent. We had a range of sights and a range of places to stay, from the simple to the luxurious, and everything ran like clockwork. I have to thank Mr Pathi for that, but I also have to say a big thank you to Niroshan, our driver/guide. He was a very good driver, conscientious and extremely knowledgeable, but he did far more than expected in terms of making sure that we were really happy, and proved himself invaluable when Gillian had to rush home. He effectively took responsibility for us and found the travel agent which had a relationship with the airline and accepted credit cards, which of course was a huge relief, as well as coping with some pretty hard and horrendous driving on what should have been a rest day for us all.
Some minor points:
1. We drove straight from the airport to Anuradhapura, which was a 27-hour journey door to door for us (and the roads are all in the process of being upgraded - awful!) This was fine, but in retrospect and as geriatrics we should have given ourselves an extra day there. The programme was heavy at the beginning and we were rather tired in the cultural triangle and perhaps did not take in everything. We chickened out of the last leg of the climb in Sigiriya for instance!
2. The van has seen better days. I know we had to have it because there were 3 of us, but it's noisy and not very comfortable for long distances.
3. We sent the extra SLR18,000 to cover the extra costs of Gillian's early departure to Mr Pathi with Niroshan, but we were a bit surprised at the total amount as we were already paying a "retainer" for both the vehicle and Niroshan. I know there was petrol and phone calls (and Mr Pathi was very helpful and booked the hotel for us) but wonder whether there were any costs which we did not know of? [The extra transfer to the airport from Tangalle and back was not included in the 'round trip' tour price since all transport costs are charged on a distance basis.]
4. I have put a very nice review of Hanthana House [Kandy] on TripAdvisor, and mentioned too in passing Tikalanka.
5. I have put less favourable reviews of The Plains and Jetwing St Andrews [Nuwara Eliya] on TripAdvisor.
- The Plains is a lovely house, but we were frozen. I think it's one built for good weather only. It's also very isolated, and there's no convivial atmosphere. You know we were disappointed since we actually wanted to see Nuwara Eliya.
- Looking at recent TripAdvisor reviews of Jetwing St Andrews we were not the only ones who were bumped, and I think you mentioned that this had happened before to your clients. We were also disappointed in the hotel itself, though the staff was apologetic about our experience (and the guided tour by the resident naturalist was excellent.) I understand that there's a shortage of accommodation in Nuwara Eliya, but I would discourage your clients from going there, especially if they book as early as we did.
- I don't know whether you have seen the Apa Villa Illuketia [Galle], but in many ways it is out of this world - his and hers baths under the skies! The infinity pool is wondrous. But there's something of an atmosphere of control there which we did not experience elsewhere. For instance they were reluctant to let us have the room that we chose in the pool house because they had got the other one ready and as far as we know Gillian was still paying for the second room. Nor would they let Niroshan enter the premises as we had arranged with him at 8.30am, even though we were in the Pool House away from everybody else. Nor did they tell us that we had to ring and ask for him to be let in at that time, nor tell us that he had arrived. They also tried to sell us a lobster dinner for US$45, which was a lot more than we had paid for the same thing at The Last House [Tangalle] the day before. They eventually did serve us a delicious curry on the most beautifully decorated table at a reasonable price. And surprisingly we had a saga of being given the wrong keys, bedside lamps that had broken and sockets that did not work. All a bit disconcerting!
So thank you all, it was wonderful.
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