Sri Lanka with Superlink Tours

I encourage ITN readers to visit Sri Lanka, as tourism is their biggest revenue earner and will go a long way to helping the people recover from the December 2004 tsunami.

A group of 12 of us took a 2-week trip to Sri Lanka in March ’05 arranged by Superlink Tours, Ltd. (Lucky Plaza 70, Kollupitiya Lane, Colombo 3, Sri Lanka; phone 00 94 11 2573767 or visit www.superlinktours.com). We traveled in a 22-seater air-conditioned bus, with our baggage in a van that followed us.

We flew American Airlines to Zürich and then took Air Lanka to Katunayake International Airport, arriving the next morning. The first three days we stayed at the Hilton Colombo Hotel, a very central 4-star hotel with its own gym and pool where we all relaxed and got over jet lag.

In the evening we had a gemstone demonstration by a leading wholesale gem merchant who showed us different precious stones, including star sapphires, opals, amethysts and more, varying in price from $500 to $5,000. The merchant showed us what to look for in choosing good stones.

On another day, we shopped at the Bullion Exchange in Bambalapitiya and ordered custom-made jewelry, which was ready by the end of our trip. We also bought rings and bangles of 21-karat gold and pendants with rubies and diamonds.

An introduction to the various religions of the country was provided at a Hindu kovil (public temple). This was followed by a visit to one of the leading Buddhist temples. We were inspired by the devotees dressed in white and offering flowers at the different altars and by the cute children making their way to their Sunday school classes.

In the afternoon we visited an orphanage and had tea with the 22 children there ages three to 18. We took them all gifts, and the previous day two members of our group had taken the older children shopping and bought them clothes plus linen for their beds. After the tea, the girls performed some dances and songs for us in appreciation.

A few of the many highlights of Sri Lanka included the Pinnawela elephant orphanage, where we were able to pet the babies; Dambulla, with the most impressive of all of Sri Lanka’s rock temples (2,000 square meters of painted walls and ceilings); Anuradhapura (Sri Lanka’s first capital, from the third century B.C. to the 10th A.D); Polonnaruwa (its medieval capital); the Sigiriya lion rock fort with the “Heavenly Maidens” fresco, and the 2,200-year-old Sri Maha Bodhi, or sacred bo tree, once a sapling of the tree under which the Lord Buddha found enlightenment.

Our guide, Hetti, a retired director of the Sri Lankan Tourist Board, was excellent.

Kandy was the seat of the last king of Sri Lanka before the British took over in 1815. In Kandy we first drove around the lake, which was built by the king in 1806, to get a view of the city. We then made our way to the Temple of the Tooth, the most sacred place in the country, where the tooth relic of the Buddha is enshrined in a gold casket.

In the hill country we stopped at the Labookellie Tea Factory to take a tour. This was followed by a drive through the luxuriant countryside with its numerous waterfalls and deep valleys. We reached Nuwara Eliya, once a British planters’ hilltown, with its quaint pseudo-English houses and a typical British-looking post office.

On a jeep safari in the more than 1,250-square-kilometer Yala National Park, we saw elephants, buffaloes, mongooses, deer, jackals, wild boars and a variety of birds, including peacocks, jungle fowl, parrots, painted storks and more.

The whole trip cost us $1,250 per person for the land portion; our airfare was $1,400 round trip from Nashville.

— FRANK JAYAKODY, Shelbyville, TN