Okay, our 35 days in Sri Lanka are behind us, so I would like to share all the useful information we’ve discovered here over the entire time. You will primarily learn how things work in Sri Lanka, how much things cost, what you need for a comfortable stay and travel, or conversely, what is absolutely pointless to deal with. Everything depends on the flights, which you can find on Skyscanner at a good price.
Let’s start with the current situation in Sri Lanka. But this time only in brief, because the main thing you could read in the article ‘Sri Lanka 2’! Simply put, Sri Lanka is absolutely safe for tourists! And what about Covid?! But not at all, no one is dealing with it here. We are both vaccinated, we have printed certificates, but we have not used them even once.
So, first and foremost, cash. With a card, you won’t get very far. Not even with tipping.
Friend was in Sri Lanka at the beginning of 2022, when the rate was 1 Rs = 0.1 CZK. After our arrival, the crisis was in full swing, and money could be exchanged at a rate of 1 Rs = 0.06 CZK, but it will be better for you to calculate in the ratio of 1 CZK = 15 Rs. The current exchange rate will depend on when and where you will be withdrawing cash/exchanging money. Money can be exchanged almost everywhere, and it doesn’t matter if you have dollars or euros, but dollars are more common here. For us, the most advantageous were withdrawals from ATMs with a Czech debit card. We usually withdrew from Peoples Bank ATMs, but we also got a recommendation for Bank Ceylon.
Speaking of the card, be careful. They hardly accept it anywhere, so always have some cash on you. You can pay by card only in large supermarkets, larger hotels, or restaurants. For example, in one of the accommodations, they offered us cashback when paying by card, but paying by card in the hotel was not possible.
As for the tips, they are already included in the price. If you want to give something extra, it usually doesn’t meet with success, and they look at you a bit strangely.
Sure, I recommend buying a local SIM card. Mobitel seems to be the most popular and works best, with a pretty nice price of 2,620 rupees for 60 GB of data. That was enough for my work on both my mobile and Mac for about 20 days. But beware, there are places like Ohiya where Mobitel has no signal at all, and you’ll only get by with a Dialog SIM card. A local SIM card is a must, also due to frequent power outages and obviously non-functioning Wi-Fi. Or even when the accommodation claims to have Wi-Fi, when you ask for the password, they look at you like it’s spring. If you don’t want to waste time dealing with a local SIM card, you can use Airalo. There, when registering with the code ANDRE5430, you will get $3 on your first order.
Accommodation can be found from about 100 CZK/night up to around 2,000 CZK/night. It mainly depends on how demanding you are. If I had to average our accommodation, it would come out to about 600 CZK/night. And we even stayed in a 5* hotel.
Travel here can be done in several ways: by bus, train, tuk-tuk, or on your own – scooter, car, tuk-tuk – everything can be rented. I definitely wouldn’t recommend renting a car. I think I’m a pretty capable driver, but what’s happening on the roads here is one big psycho. Simply put, the priority goes to the one who is bigger or faster. Also, everyone is constantly honking here, because they obviously don’t use mirrors at all. But that’s actually the same as in the Czech Republic, isn’t it?
Price-wise, the bus or train is probably the cheapest, if you’re willing to ride 3rd class. We most often traveled by taxi or tuk-tuk, or we rented a scooter. You can rent a scooter for 1,500 rupees/day, but it really depends on where you are. We mostly paid 2,500 rupees/day. We even paid over 4,000 rupees/day once, because there was simply no other option, which is quite abused here, and the prices are then much higher.
Their standard offering in a local bistro is something in the style of Rice&Curry, Fried Rice, and Kotta – then they, of course, prepare it in a million other ways. They also have their own pancakes, and above all, they really like it very spicy. So if, like me, you don’t like spicy food much, you’ll be leaving just like me, loving it! The prices for food are mostly quite ridiculous. In a bistro, we usually paid around 1,500 rupees for 2 people, including drinks. When you go to a restaurant, you can easily reach 10,000 rupees, or even 60,000 rupees like us in Smoke & Bitters, including drinks…
It’s not worth choosing restaurants here based on Google. Either ask the locals or just go blindly based on where you see the locals. Because due to Covid and the tense situation in 2022, a lot of places are closed.
What you really need to be careful about is coffee. If, like me, you love freshly ground whole bean coffee and therefore precise and aromatic espresso, forget about it. It’s better to stock up at home, because you’ll hardly find it here. There are of course exceptions, but you’ll mostly encounter Turkish (sediment) or something like a 3-in-1 from Nescafe. And that hurts, really!
Alcohol is also quite hard to come by here. You won’t find it in a normal store, only in larger markets like Food City or Keells, where there are separate windows. Alcohol prices are always different. Once I paid around 3,000 rupees for 12 beers (6x Heineken and 6x Lions – local), and sometimes 2,000 rupees for 4x Heineken… Why? It’s hard to say, but in this case, you can’t negotiate.
So, do you plan to vacation in Sri Lanka? I put together an itinerary from our stay and included all the most interesting places that we think are worth seeing in Sri Lanka. I also added tips for excursions in Sri Lanka.
