Sri Lanka

Sri Lanka

1996

We spent 2 weeks in Sri Lanka, which consisted of touring for 9 days, and then a bit of beach at the end. We did all the usual stuff, like Kandy (Festival of the Tooth Fairy, or something like that), the Elephant Sanctuary, the statues of Buddha, Sigiriya Fortress etc. Yala National Park was an unexpected delight where we saw, Elephants, Jackals, Mongeese, Crocodiles and some beautiful birds. Learnt some useful bartering techniques here with shells. Rather than barter for a particular one you want start with a medium sized banknote and see how many you can get for it. Very effective. It was quite encouraging to see that the traders in the markets hassled the local Sri Lankans as much as tourists. 

Hand-carved statues of a reclining Buddha 

Sri Lanka 2

Sitting Buddha

Sri Lanka 3

These fruit stalls were really cheap, and very fresh. Catch the red bananas any chance you get. King coconuts are widely available and very tasty.

Sri Lanka 1

© Paul Hyland 2012