Sri Lanka is an amazing country for birds. Although small, it has a wide variety of habitats and over 435 species of birds can be seen here. Out of these, 235 are resident and33 of these are endemic. I would have liked to stay longer and explore a bit more but I was doing an impromptu award trip based on an amazing promo so I had to cut back to two birding hotspots – Kithulgala & Sinharaja.
DO YOU NEED A VISA?
Yes, most people do but fortunately this is a painless ETA procedure done online. Print it out and show it to the officers when you arrive. You can also get visas on arrival but I thought it was easiest to do it online and pay by credit card. It costs $30 except for citizens of SAARC countries who pay $15. You can get a 2 day transit visa for free at the airport. I can see this option becoming very popular with Sri Lankan Airlines joining One World for people doing RTW tickets! I would certainly do it and spend my 2 days in Kithulgala!
.
GETTING THERE
You can get here easily on a Central Asian award. Colombo has fewer airlines serving it than the main cities of India such as Delhi, Mumbai & Bangalore but there are still options for all alliances although One World dominates.
STAR ALLIANCE:
Thai Airways – Bangkok
Singapore Airlines – Singapore
ONE WORLD:
With Sri Lankan Airlines joining One World on 1 March 2014, this really opens up the country to awards. Remember, you can use British Airways Avios & American AAdvantage for good deals on award flights.
Sri-Lankan Airlines – Abu Dhabi, Bangalore, Bangkok, Chennai, Dammam, Doha, Dubai, Frankfurt, Jeddah, Karachi, Kochi, Kuala Lumpur, Kuwait, London, Maldives, Moscow, Mumbai, Muscat, New Delhi, Paris, Riyadh, Rome, Singapore, Thiruvananthapuram, Tiruchirappalli, Tokyo
Cathay Pacific – Bangkok, Hong Kong
Malaysian – Kuala Lumpur
Qatar – Doha
SKYTEAM:
Korean – Seoul
Saudia – Jeddah, Riyadh
China Eastern – Kunming
NON-ALLIANCE (Bookable with miles):
Etihad – Abu Dhabi (AA Partner)
Emirates – Dubai, Maldives, Singapore (Qantas partner)
WHERE TO STAY ON POINTS
The bad news? Very few chain hotels here so few opportunities to use points.
HILTON – Colombo Hilton & Colombo Hilton Residence – both at 40,000 points.
WYNDHAM – Ramada Katunayake Airport – 8000 points
The good news? Kithulgala is 2 hours away by taxi via a non-trafficky road so it’s pretty much just as quick to stay there rather than the city where you can take almost an hour just to get there from the airport! Most flights seem to leave in the late evening or at night so you probably won’t need a layover in Colombo unless you especially want one, in which case I would just use Pointshound to find a good hotel. Our flight arrived at 2:30am so by the time we finished the formalities we were out by 3:00. I don’t like traveling at night so we waited until almost 5am and took a taxi to Kithulgala. Everyone you see here is either waiting for a flight or waiting for their ride. The kiosks in the rear are taxi companies.
GETTING AROUND
Many tourists like to hire a car & driver for the duration of the trip. Since our itinerary didn’t really require a car at the destinations (to drive to temples, cultural sights, markets, etc) it would have been a waste of money and I was really not comfortable with having an “employee” with us all the time and being responsible for him. We used a taxi for the first leg, Colombo Airport to Kithulgala for a negotiated rate of 6500 rupees, then used buses after that. The official taxi rates are here but because of the competition you can usually bargain with some of the operators. The scenery enroute is gorgeous!
The first bird I saw in Sri Lanka was a Common Mynah.
A couple towns we passed through.
Entering the Kithulgala Resthouse.
Our taxi driver and car dropping us at Kithulgala Resthouse.
Buses are dirt cheap for Western tourists, I don’t think a single one was over $5. They are slow though so allow plenty of time for your transfer or do it around mid-day when the birds are having a siesta!
WHERE THE BIRDS ARE
There are several excellent places for birding in Sri Lanka. I have highlighted a few on this map. I wasn’t able to get to Yala but I will be blogging about Kithulgala and Sinharaja in more detail in due time.
.