Sri Lanka’s old name was Serendib – the Arabic name for something one comes across by surprise. It is also known by its colonial name of Ceylon. Whatever the name – ancient or modern, Sri Lanka remains a fascinating all encompassing holiday destination and with direct flight available between Gatwick and Colombo, the island nation’s capital, easily reached. If you need to find somewhere to leave our car while on holiday use a gatwick hotel with parking which gives you maximum flexibility when it comes to flight times.
Colombo is the commercial capital of Sri Lanka, and is a great place to begin your holiday. Culturally diverse and a virtual melting pot waiting to be sampled, Colombo offers a host of things to do. Find colonial buildings standing side by side with the glitz and glam of the modern day constructs when you traverse the city. Beyond the capital there is a great diversity of attractions and because Sri Lanka is relatively small, they can all be easily sampled in a two week visit.
To the East, the central mountain zone hides a world of tea estates, misty cloud forest and the highland towns of Kandy and Nuwara Eliya. Kandy is one of Sri Lanka’s most important cities as far as ceremonies and rituals go – it is the site of one of Buddha’s sacred teeth and the “Ceremony of the Tooth” takes place every year with much fanfare and procession. Sri Lanka is still a divided nation and has passed through troubled times in the recent past. Its majority is the Sinhalese community who speaks Sinhala and is almost entirely Buddhist. The minority Tamil population lives in the North and North East and is Hindu.
Along the coast are miles of unspoilt coastline with white sandy beaches and plenty of choice of accommodation. On the South West coast near Hikkaduwa are coral reefs which have been protected and you can snorkel over these or go on a glass bottom boat tour. The town of Galle on the South coast has an atmospheric old town contained in the still solid walls of the Galle fort. This is a very pleasant place to stroll around, purchase souvenirs and have tea or a meal in many of the restaurants available.
Elephants have a special place in the hearts and minds of the Sri Lankan people and they will be found both domesticated and wild in many parts of the country. The domesticated elephants now have little work to do as much of their former work is carried out by bulldozer and tractor.
In many parts of Sri Lanka are its national parks and nature reserves. These offer a fantastic opportunity to get up close and personal with a wide variety of the sub continent’s wildlife population. This includes large mammals like elephant, buffalo, deer, leopards as well as langur monkeys and macaques and a huge variety of birdlife including resplendent peacocks. While some of the Northern national parks have suffered to some extent from the fighting between the government troops and the Tamil separatist movement, now over, many of the reserves are open for business.