Sri Lanka Travel Information and Travel Guide

Sri Lanka

Our Top Picks For Sri Lanka

1 Ancient Cities

Visit Anuradhapura, Polonnaruwa and Sigiriya – the magnificent relics of Sri Lanka's golden age
2 Arugam Bay

A wonderfully easy-going beach village offering Sri Lanka's best surfing, great lagoon trips and ample wildlife-spotting opportunities
3 Ella

This sleepy village-with-a-view is the perfect base for walks through tea plantations to temples and waterfalls
4 Yala National Park

Take a wildlife safari – it's your best chance to spot the elusive leopard
5 Horton's Plains & World's End

Beautiful, silent and strange, these sweeping plains come to a breathtaking vertical drop – a classic sunrise walk

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Fast Facts about Sri Lanka

Number of waterfalls
103
Highest waterfall
Bambarakanda Falls (240m)
Population
21.1 million
Tip top sportsman Muttiah Muralitharan (spin bowler)
Number of three-wheelers
3 million
Cost of a new three-wheeler
US$3500
Adult literacy
female 90%, male 95%
Life expectancy
female 77, male 73
Population density per sq km
Colombo 2500 people, dry zone less than 50.

Our favourite Sri Lanka Blogs (beta)

Sri's Just not that into you

Blog: Snarky Tofu - 16 September 2009

Hi Ho, and welcome again to another installment of Snarky Tofu, the on-line column that answers the questions you weren't going to ask before you didn't ask them. This one comes to you straight from the front seat of a brightly colored bus somewhere between Chennai and Pondicherry in the beautiful Tamil Nadu state of India.

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Trincomalee: Gorgeous Beaches and Exposed Rebar

Blog: Snarky Tofu - 10 September 2009

I am at a hotel in Trincomalee, which is on the east, and to the north of Sri Lanka, in a corner of the country that was nominally on and off again under Tiger control for parts of the conflict so recently and noisily concluded. There is a heavy police and military presence here, though people are telling me that things have lightened up significantly in the last month. Its a seaside town, one of the reasons I came here, to escape the rain of the hill country in favor of some sunshine, of which there is plenty.

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Buddhist Summer Camp (Report from Nilambe)

Blog: Snarky Tofu - 7 September 2009

The first line of a story often set the tone for its entirety, and to avoid giving a false impression, it's best to resist mentioning items that, though factors in the story, might emotionally lead the reader into forming conclusions unintended by the story itself. For this reason I shall refrain from mentioning the leeches until much later.Kindly disregard the word leeches in the previous paragraph.

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Introducing Sri Lanka

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Travel Alert: Fighting between the Sri Lankan military and the LTTE (Tamil Tigers) has ceased, but northern Sri Lanka has been devastated by the conflict. Check the BBC for news updates and Safe Travel for current government warnings.

When the noted writer Sir Arthur C Clarke made his home in Sri Lanka in 1956, he claimed the island jewel of the Indian Ocean was the best place in the world from which to view the universe. The author of 2001: A Space Odyssey passed away in 2008, but no doubt the futurist would have logged on to Google Earth to gaze back at his island home from an online universe. And concealed in the sky-high imagery of this teardrop-shaped nation, he would have recognised an amazing diversity for somewhere so compact.

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More about Sri Lanka

Tips & articles

Esala Perahera: Hindu festival of the tooth

14 July 2009

Legend has it that when Buddha was cremated in the fifth century BC, one of his followers took a tooth...

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Latest headlines for Sri Lanka

From BBC News

Strauss lauds Vettori's fair play

30 September 2009 5:20AM

England captain Andrew Strauss applauds New Zealand counterpart Daniel Vettori for upholding the "fair play" factor at the Champions Trophy.

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England v New Zealand as it happened

29 September 2009 6:10PM

New Zealand reach the Champions Trophy semi-finals as Group B winners after beating England by four wickets.

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ICC Champions Trophy 2009

29 September 2009 5:55PM

Fixtures and results for the ICC Champions Trophy in South Africa.

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