For all those who have ever snubbed a guided holiday - prepare to be surprised!

Forget what you thought you knew about guided tours, in Sri Lanka, travel writer Anna King Shahab finds myriad opportunities to experience the real heart of the country, thanks to Intrepid Travel

Sri Lanka needs visitors back. The “Pearl of the Indian Ocean” was on a remarkable upwards trajectory – named “destination of the year” by Lonely Planet in 2019, a decade after its 25-year civil war ended – and tourists were flocking there. Then Covid-19, political unrest and economic collapse hit. But the country, home to resilient people and a remarkably beautiful landscape, is on the rise again; it’s open and considered safe for visitors, and its people need them to come. In return for visiting, Sri Lanka rewards with experiences you won’t find anywhere else – and if you want to really scratch the surface of the place, a small group tour with Intrepid is a great idea. Here’s why…

Be guided by a local expert

Intrepid tours are led by local guides, and our Sri Lankan guide Suminda Dodangoda (Dodan) was a brilliant ambassador for both country and company. He fielded every question we threw at him expertly, taught us so much, and took pleasure in showing us the real Sri Lanka, the country he knows and loves. Having a separate driver, Sampath, meant we had Dodan’s full attention (and driving is a task best done uninterrupted, particularly on windy mountainous routes).

Stop at places you’d never think of stopping at

Whether organised ahead or at times ad-hoc (love an itinerary that’s got a bit flex in it), stops we made in between destinations became unexpected highlights of our time in the country, as well as a way to support locally owned small businesses. At a tiny roadside shack we watched the stallholder flip roti, which she served to us with a wild boar curry and cups of strong tea, her shy young daughter holding on to her skirt all the while. We discovered the cottage industries that help fuel the country. There was the curd factory the size of an average family kitchen and bedecked in cheerful pink plastic furnishings, where we enjoyed the freshly made curd with treacle – a national dish that’s also the national secret to happiness, I reckon. Thanks to Dodan’s clever planning, we delivered morning tea of chocolate biscuits bought from a general store down the road to women working at a factory on the salt flats of coastal Hambantota. These women were busy packing the processed salt into packets as quickly as any machine could. At a small family-run sugarcane factory I felt I’d stepped back into pre-industrial times. The acrid aroma of wood smoke met the sweet tang of sucrose as, through the dim light that filtered in between cracks in the roof, we watched an old woman stir vats of boiling liquid sugar, her strong, wiry arms gripping a paddle. The family was reluctant to accept our gratuities, and sent us off with packets of sugar cubes in return.

Eat like a local

Sri Lanka’s cuisine is a glorious marriage of traditions influenced by the Indian subcontinent as well as Southeast Asian influences, with Portuguese, Dutch, English and even Chinese nods in the mix. The cleverly designed itinerary saw us tick virtually every item on the hit list I had come with, with nary a tourist menu in the picture. At a palm-thatched fruit stall Dodan whipped us up a snack of juicy mango, sliced and tossed with lime juice and salt, and countless other times we’d pull over so he could whip into a shop and stock up on snacks – introducing us to local favourites from fresh fried samosa to the lemon puff biscuits and milk toffee that satisfy Sri Lanka’s sweet tooth. More than once we stopped off to dine with the busy lunchtime worker crowd, notably on the outskirts of Colombo, in a canteen where smart-uniformed staff served us thosai (pancakes made from fermented batter) on utilitarian metal trays with thin tomato and coconut condiments and a variety of lentil-based, spice-spiked fried vadai. At times we were invited to learn by doing – chopping roti into pieces on a hot griddle to make the staple kottu roti at Lario restaurant and resort in Dambulla, and cooking up a number of family-style classics at our cooking class in the home of a Sinhalese family in the city of Kandy.

Still tick off the classics

By delving into authentic local experiences, don’t fret that you’ll be missing out on the hot ticket sites – those make the cut, too. Our itinerary, a media visit that combined elements of the Real Food Adventure and Premium offerings, included visits to Dambulla Temple Cave, Sigiriya Lion Rock, the Temple of the Sacred Tooth in Kandy (where, thanks to Dodan, we made it into the inner sanctum which only opens for 15 minutes for our glimpse at the gold casket housing the tooth). We ticked off tea country with a tour of Glenloch Tea Factory, as well as a visit to a beautiful family-run plantation in Ambagasthanna Village. There, owner Mr Thilina showed us though the property which as well as tea bushes, boasted an array of spice and fruit-bearing trees and shrubs. Then he handed us over to his neighbour, a retired engineer who has given up city life in Colombo to farm under organic and biodynamic principles. We ended our visit with a beautiful lunch in the garden – curries of prawns, banana blossom and jackfruit, and much more. We fitted in a glorious train ride from Nanu Oya to Ella, and became giddy with excitement on a safari of Yala National Park. We didn’t chance upon a leopard there, but did meet elephants (including a gorgeous mother and calf), water buffalo, crocodiles, monitor lizards, grey langur, a rarely sighted sloth bear, and a cornucopia of bird life. Again, we were fortunate to have Dodan in our jeep at Yala, able to point out what wildlife we were looking at and give us background information. Turns out he is quite the twitcher, so we spotted about ten times as many bird species as most visitors would. If there’s a limit to this man’s knowledge, we didn’t reach it!

Have a ripple effect

The way Intrepid operates gives focus to locally owned businesses, meaning your spend is supporting the local economy. This extends to the accommodation, which is also chosen for uniqueness. Our hotels across five nights were all from the “premium” bracket and all struck a balance of luxury with personality. A couple of highlights were Jetwing, in Dambulla, where we gazed from the truly enormous swimming pool across paddocks and a lake to distant mountains, and enjoyed the excellent breakfast buffet; and Mountain Heavens Ella, where we arrived after dark and awoke to a magnificent view over the property’s turquoise-blue pool to jungle-clad valley and hills. Our guide collected plastic rubbish wherever we went and told us Intrepid has partnered with Zero Plastic to help drive behavioural change among citizens, to reduce plastic waste and support local production of plastic alternatives.

For years I eschewed organised itineraries, believing they wouldn’t offer the kind of insightful experiences I could glean as an independent traveller. And that’s probably true in a lot of cases. However, experiencing two very different Intrepid tours, the first in Northern Spain and this recent Sri Lanka trip has flipped my outlook. And best of all, you get to have all these amazing experiences without any of the tedious planning.

Checklist

SRI LANKA

GETTING THERE

Various airlines fly from Auckland to Bandaranaike International Airport in Colombo with one stopover, including Air NZ, Qantas, Qatar Airways, Singapore Airlines and Air Asia.

DETAILS

Intrepid Travel currently offers 12 Sri Lanka itineraries, ranging in length, activities, accommodation type, and price – from $1230 for an 8-day Basix itinerary through to $5355 for a 14-day Premium tour.

intrepidtravel.com