We’ve enjoyed our holiday in Sri Lanka

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BIRDING, WILDLIFE & CULTURE TOUR
14TH – 29TH MARCH 2013

Carole & Barry Eccles
United Kingdom

Organisation & Administration 
Overall, the standard was good but we felt that more information regarding the following would have helped:

• Tipping – we weren’t aware of how much Sri Lanka has a culture of tipping for every service rendered, and some guidelines would have been very useful.
• A more detailed daily itinerary giving travelling times, breaks for lunch etc, and telephone numbers of hotels in case of difficulty in finding them.

Accommodation
Unfortunately, we felt that the accommodation was of a lower standard that we had expected, and if we had been given a choice of hotels in different price brackets, we would have been willing to pay more for a better standard.
We would like to say that at every place we stayed, the staff were excellent – friendly, welcoming, helpful and always happy to chat with us.

Rest House, Kitulgala

We thought the hotel was very nice and in a lovely spot by the river.  However, the room that we had was very poor.  It was the furthest away from anything, dark and poorly lit and extremely noisy.  Good food.

MPS Village, Dambulla

This was the best hotel we stayed in.  It’s in a lovely position and the room we had was great – spacious, comfortable, air conditioned and quiet.  The food was also excellent here.

Nature Walk Resort, Kandy

Average hotel – ok for one night.  The food was poor.

Binota Residency, Nuwara E.

This is a very poor hotel.  The building itself looks good from a distance, but its best days are behind it.  The first room we had was directly underneath staff quarters and it was extremely noisy, resulting in no sleep.  We asked to be moved and were given a much nicer, brighter and quieter room.  We looked in all the other rooms and they were all better that the original one we had been given – why?
The food here was very good as was the service.

Hibiscus Garden, Nr Yala

This is a very nice hotel and more of the standard we would have liked elsewhere.  The food was also very good, but the service was slow at times and English was not widely understood.

Martins Lodge, Sinharaja

The good thing is that its position is fantastic and the food, though simple, was very good.  However, the accommodation is awful.  The beds were very hard with thin and old mattresses which resulted in bed bug bites.  Both the sink and the toilet leaked, spreading water on the bathroom floor, together with water from the shower that went everywhere and, due to the humidity, took hours to dry.  It wouldn’t take much to improve things here to a more acceptable level – fix the plumbing, put a shower curtain up or some means of trapping water, have the bedroom floor swept every day and buy new mattresses.

Bay Beach Hotel, Weligama

Apart from it looking like an Institution, it was actually ok.  The room was spacious as was the bathroom, although the furniture had seen better days, and we had a lovely view of the bay.  The food was ok too.

Euro Star Hotel, Negombo

What a poor hotel to end our holiday with.  We asked to be moved to a quieter room and for one night it was fine, but again it was of a very average standard.  The food was good with excellent service.

Transport & Travelling 
Senarath’s car was comfortable and immaculately maintained throughout the trip.  On travelling days it felt that we were spending too much time in the car without breaks being planned.

Activities 
We thought the varied range of habitats included was excellent and enjoyed them all with the exception of Yala National Park, where the endless bumping around made the trip not worthwhile.  It didn’t help that there were very few birds and almost no animals when we were there.  We would much have preferred an extra day at Bundala wetlands which were excellent.
We enjoyed very much the visits to Sigiriya and Polonnaruwa, and Kandy, and we really would have liked to have time to look around the old town of Galle.
Visits to a Spice Garden, Woodcarver, and Tea Factory were all well chosen, informative and interesting.

Guide 
Throughout the trip, Senarath worked extremely hard to make our holiday enjoyable.  His knowledge of flora and fauna was outstanding and he worked very hard to ensure we saw as many birds as possible (we saw 210 species, with 32 endemics).  We learned a great deal about Sri Lanka, its people and its customs.

All in all, we’ve enjoyed our holiday in Sri Lanka.  The people are wonderful, the scenery is outstanding and, although there is a great deal of travel involved, it is worth it to see the diverse habitats on offer.

Carole & Barry Eccles

United Kingdom