The shape of the trip.
Written by your guide.
Seven days, three corners of Sri Lanka, and one guide from start to finish.
Thilanka meets you in Sigiriya. You stay two nights at Amber Crest Resort in the village fields, and ride a bicycle along the paddy lanes with Sigiriya rock in view. In Kandy you stay at Areca Terrace on the hill above the town, and shape your own clay pot and oil lamp by hand with Malini, in a family workshop of village potters. In Ella you live with Nirmala and Sunil at Little Cardamom for three nights: kithul treacle at dawn, and a sunrise walk through a family tea garden with Selvi.
This trip shows every kind of Sarisara partner working together: a guide, two hotels, an activity host, a Local Expert, a home stay family and their own experience.
Where you are on each day, in the order you travel. The photo on each pin is where you stay or what you do there.
Every stay and activity, with its own dates and times. Open a day, then open a service for the room, the meals and the photos.
Amber Crest Resort is a calm, premium hotel in the village fields east of Sigiriya (Lion Rock). Spacious rooms sit in low buildings around a wide garden of old rain trees, and from the long pool terrace you can see the rock rising above the treetops. The entrance to the rock is about ten minutes away by car.
Mornings start early in Sigiriya. If you want to climb the rock when it opens, the kitchen packs a breakfast box for you the night before, and tea is ready from five o'clock. Afternoons are quiet: a swim, a rest under the trees, or a slow walk to the village tank to watch the water birds.
Dinner is Sri Lankan home cooking: red rice, curries made with vegetables from the resort garden, and fish from the village tank, with milder dishes for children. Families are very welcome. There are cots for babies, early dinners for small children and a shallow end in the pool.
The front desk helps you plan each day: a jeep ride to Minneriya or Kaudulla National Park, the Dambulla Raja Maha Viharaya (Dambulla Cave Temple), or an early climb up Pidurangala rock to watch the sun rise behind Sigiriya.
A morning bicycle ride on quiet village roads around Sigiriya, with the rock in view for most of the way. You ride past paddy fields, small reservoirs and home gardens with your host Nuwan, who grew up in the village and knows the families along the road.
What you will do
Good to know
The ride takes about three and a half hours, with plenty of stops. The roads are almost flat, so you only need to be able to ride a bicycle with confidence. Bicycles and helmets come in sizes for adults and for children from about ten years old.
Meeting point: Sigiriya village. Your guide brings you. The exact place is shared after booking.
Accessibility: this is a cycling activity on village roads, so it is not suitable for wheelchair users. A tuk-tuk follows the group, so anyone who gets tired can sit and ride along for a while.
About your host
Nuwan was born in a farming family near Sigiriya and still helps his father in the paddy field at planting time. He has led cycling rides around the village for eight years, and he likes to show visitors the Sigiriya where people live, not only the rock.
Areca Terrace is a family-run hotel on a green hillside above Kandy, about ten minutes by car from Kandy Lake and the Sri Dalada Maligawa (Temple of the Sacred Tooth Relic). Tall areca palms grow along the drive, and from the terrace you look over the town to the hills on the other side.
The house is built in the old Kandyan style: teak floors, white walls, a deep veranda and an inner courtyard with a frangipani tree. Ceiling fans turn above the air conditioning, and every room looks out on the garden or the town.
In the evening the drums from the temple carry up the hill, and the town lights come on below the terrace. Dinner is a Sri Lankan buffet with dishes from the Kandy area, and the kitchen also cooks simple food for children.
The front desk can book seats at a Kandyan dance show, and arrange a driver to the Royal Botanical Gardens in Peradeniya or to the tea factories on the road to the hill country.
Day 1
Your guide brings you to Malini's home and workshop, where the shelves are full of drying pots, oil lamps and small clay figures.
Knead the clay with your hands and feet, the way the family has always done it.
Shape a small pot and a little oil lamp (pahana) on the hand-turned wheel while Malini guides your hands.
Smooth and decorate your pieces with simple tools, leaves and patterns pressed into the clay.
See the wood-fired kiln and the finished pots, and look around the small family shop of handmade lamps, pots and souvenirs.
Sit with the family on the veranda for tea and a small snack. The class ends at about 1:00 PM.
Little Cardamom is the family home of Nirmala and Sunil, on a quiet lane above Ella town. From the veranda you look straight down the Ella Gap, with tea hills on both sides. The guest rooms open onto a small garden of cardamom, pepper vines and banana trees.
Breakfast is included and you eat it with the family: hoppers or string hoppers, coconut sambol, fruit from the garden and a pot of tea from the hills around you. Nirmala also cooks dinner when you ask: rice and five curries, most of them from her own garden.
Sunil drives a tuk-tuk and can take you to Little Adam's Peak, the Nine Arches Bridge at Demodara or Ravana Falls. Their daughter Hasini keeps bee boxes at the end of the garden, and the family's kithul palms grow just behind the house.
Little Cardamom is registered with the Sri Lanka Tourism Development Authority (SLTDA) as a Home Stay Unit.
A gentle three-hour walk through a small family tea garden above Ella, starting at dawn when the light comes over the hills. Your host Selvi grew up among these tea bushes, and her family still picks the leaf here every day.
What you will do
Good to know
The walk takes about three hours, at a slow pace with many stops. The paths are narrow and uneven, with some steep parts, so you need good walking shoes. Children from eight years old are welcome.
Meeting point: Ella town. Your guide brings you. The exact place is shared after booking.
Accessibility: the paths are steep and have steps cut into the hill, so this walk is not suitable for wheelchair users or for people who find steps difficult.
About your host
Selvi is from a Tamil tea-growing family that has lived on this hillside for four generations. Her mother was a plucker, and Selvi now leads small groups through the garden. She speaks Tamil, Sinhala and English, and she likes to teach you a few words of each on the way up.
What this trip is remembered for.
So there are no surprises.
Included
Your guide Thilanka for all 7 daysAll stays and the activities in the planNot included
International flightsVisa feesEntrance tickets — paid in cash at the gateYour guide gives a lower price for bigger groups.
2 to 3 adults: 10% off the guide's fee.
4 to 5 adults: 15% off the guide's fee.
2 to 3 children: 5% off the guide's fee.
Worked out for you when you send your request.
Only from travellers who really took this trip.
The stays and experiences you will meet on the way. Each one opens its own page.
Trips, experiences and stays in and around Colombo.
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Fire dancers light the road before the elephants of the Esala Perahera.
