[Global Entry]

I figured I'd drop some intel on my trip to Sri Lanka, because there isn't a ton of intel on Sri Lanka on the forum yet, and I'll have spent enough time to form some basic ideas about the place by the time this trip is complete. I point out that this is not a game trip, I'm with my parents and my LTR, and that's been the focus of the trip. I've not gamed at all, and did a few soft approaches that I knew I wouldn't pursue, just to get a better sense of the female population. However, after 51 countries, I can do a decent job extrapolating from what I've experienced, and I'm a bit of a student to human interaction. Take what you like from this non-report, and leave the rest, or consider it a RVF member's view of a travel destination, with a little bit of potential game intel thrown in.

(Because of my travel schedule and companions, I'm going to drop this thread in a few pieces, as I don't have a lot of uninterrupted time and because I want to get it down while its still fresh).

Sri Lanka is a moderately sized island off the southeast coast of India. Its population is 70 percent buddhist, with sizable Tamil and Muslim minorities. The people look largely similarly to the diverse populations of India, but I'd have to say that they're almost uniformly much more friendly and warm than I experienced traveling in India. Like in India, I've seen women ranging in skin tones from light tan to almost black, and with varying physiques to match.

Its a poor country by western standards, very undeveloped and un-urbanized compared to many other countries in Asia. If you fly over the country from the east to the main airport in Colombo (on the country's west coast), you'll see very few sizable buildings until you reach Colombo. However according to the world bank, the percentage of people living in poverty has dropped from almost 30 percent to below 7 percent over the last 20 years.

It's got a population of around 20 million people, and literacy and English ability is fairly good. Finding people speaking English is Colombo is a given but even in some of the smaller cities English was widely spoken (in fairness I spent a fair amount of time in more tourist oriented areas), and I encounter just a few people who couldn't speak English. That being said, accents can be quite heavy and communication for non-native English speakers might be more challenging.

Getting to the capital, Colombo (CMB hereafter), is quite a good deal. Its most likely you'll start your trip there, as the international airport for Sri Lanka is located there (or in Negombo, about 30 minutes outside CMB). The flag carrier is Sri Lankan airlines, which Ive flown a few times and is quite underrated in the service side. It almost always has very cheap business class (as do its local route competitors, such as Qatar and Etihad) fares available from both HKG/BKK/KL and from the middle east (Kuwait, Doha, Abu Dhabi and Dubai).

When I landed, I was given a sim-card (not sure if this was done in economy) and a preregistration card for a date/phone plan. After clearing immigration (you apply online before you go to SL, and I was approved in a few minutes online), which is a short process, and clear customs/baggage claim, you can drop off your card, pay around 10 USD for a week of data (2GB) for your mobile. As coverage is good, it came in quite useful, both for researching next stops, and for communicating with drivers should you be hiring cars as you move through the country.

Once your on the ground in SL, there are cars, buses and trains. Car travel is quite inexpensive and there are a lot of hirable cars around. Many can be booked through the various hotels and prices vary greatly. There are only a few highway tollroads throughout the country though, so car travel can be expected, if not via tollroad, to average 50-70 km/hr for stretches of populated areas.

Colombo is a fairly big city, though not large by Asian standards. Wealth-wise, the country and the city is comparable in feeling to the Philippines/Manila. When I stayed in CMB at the outset of my trip, I stayed in a hotel that is considered one of the best in CMB, the Cinnamon (local major hotel chain) Grand, which is located on Galle Face, which is the beach in CMB. There is a Shangri-la and a Hilton on Galle Face too, and many other non-chain hotels of 4+ quality. Galle Face is the fanciest area of CMB, and most tourists with any kind of money are staying in that area. I didn't see a single backpacker in the area at all, though I didn't really spend time on the beach. As a result, prices in the Galle Face area are substantially higher, and if you decide to book a car after staying in a Galle Face hotel before heading out of CMB like most travelers do to see the wilder areas of the country or to head to the beach, you're likely to get a much better deal by having your next hotel send a car for you to Galle Face rather than booking from the hotel from which your departing.

CMB has a lot of construction going on, and its my impression that after their civil war pretty much subsided (except for tiny patches up north) after so long, foreign money from the mid-east and China are flooding into the country. There's a strong presence of people from the mid-east in the tourist areas, and a decent number of east Asians. Gemstones (precious and semi-precious are big business here, attracting people from both the aforementioned areas). The whites I saw mostly seemed to be tourists. The country has a good reputation as a place to hire programmers, and I met a Sri Lankan American who outsources his computer consulting practice work for the health care industry in the USA to Sri Lankan programmers. They apparently are much easier to deal with and more forthright than Indian companies doing the same thing. All of this would tend to indicate decent climate for business opportunity, though to be sure, it seems that corruption and payoffs are somewhat common. Data speeds were quite good, 3G was strong throughout the capital and wifi was broadly available. In this sense, it reminded me of Cambodia, another poor country with relatively good digital infrastructure. (to be continued)

[Sp5]

Good report. I was there for a week in 2010 and for three weeks in 2013, stayed at the Mt. Lavinia near Colombo, took trains to Kandy, Batticaloa, and Galle.

I would like to go back and do some serious approaching and scoping it out, and do better than the busted Sinhalese widow, Sinhalese divorcee, and Muslim Tamil divorcee I banged, the usual Sp5 fare. One found through Tagged, two approached for directions at railway stations.

I'd like to go back to Galle and Kandy and up to Trincomalee next time.

I think Colombo's somewhat better than Manila as a livable city, though, based on it having better architecture, more greenery, and being less crowded. I wouldn't mind living in a place like Wellawatta just south of Colombo, with a nice seaside apartment.

[Global Entry]

Thanks Sp5, no surprise at all you've been and flagged here.

A little bit about prices - while you can expect first world prices in the Galle Beach hotels in CMB (low end of first world prices to be clear), we ate what I consider to be a five star meal in the Cinnamon Grande Lagoon restaurant, seven courses of fresh fish, for 30$ per person for each of four people. Food court prices in what I assume is one of the fancier malls in the country, was around five dollars a person for a large plate of food. The SL rupee has fallen substantially against the dollar recently, so prices are even cheaper. Once you get out of CMB, prices become significantly lower - the prices at the lounge in the Cinnamon Wild Yala hotel, the game lodge in Yala National Park, where I am staying on photo safari, are around the same as the food court prices in CMB. The sandwich I had for dinner last night, tuna and some kind of other fish, quite large, was also $4. Of course, you can expect some imported items, like wine, to be substantially more expensive.

Getting out of CMB, one can take a private car, a bus, or the train, which runs south out of town between CMB, past Mt. Lavinia, and Galle (the town, not the beach area mentioned above in CMB).

Galle is a largish SL city on the very south coast, and is colonial in feel within the Galle Fort peninsula. It has many buildings from the dutch colonial era, and a wall still surrounds the old town area. Its also a sales point for fishing on the SL's southwest coast, with coastal fisherman coming to the Galle fish market just outside the fort walls (next to the cricket stadium) bayside heading east to sell their catch. Bream, mullet, barrimundi, and kingfish seemed plentiful, so expect to eat well, and if you can find your way off the tourist track, very inexpensively.

The old town itself is sparkling clean (as is much of the country, which is comparably clean, where I've been to a western european capital). The sea air is wonderful in Galle, and there are travelers from all over the world. Its apparently become a popular retirement area for Brits, with an influx buying properties around Galle. There are also no shortage of younger travelers. I will note that on average, the travelers I've seen in Sri Lanka, for whatever reason, are in far better condition than backpackers in BKK. It may be because of the outdoor attractions in SL include surfing and more physical outdoor activities, I couldn't say. I've heard a lot of french and there's definitely an assortment of bankable young foreigners and of course, Chinese in smaller groups (not the mammoth ones you see in SE Asia) as well. Hotels vary in cost from budget options in the 20-40 dollar range upto five star and six star accommodation costing in excess of 300-400 per night. If you pass through, I'd suggest the excellent restaurant in the Fortaleza hotel for a meal, which again, was quite cheap. The building itself used to be a spice warehouse and is quite interesting.

Heading out of Galle on the whalewatching/dolphin-watching route, means heading on the coast road east towards Marissa and then the larger Matara. Small hotels and lodges are plentiful on the road, and there are buses running regularly. Many white faces can be seen walking within the towns that dot the south coast, all of which appear to, ten years later, have recovered well from the immense damage cause by the 2004 tsunami. Surfers dot most of the towns between Galle and Matara, in little towns such as Dickwella, and again, Marissa, which is the launching point for many whale watching tours. Apparently, if you do that, use the navy boats, which are much more powerful and quick then many of the boats provided by private operators in these towns.

There are many small shops and restaurants visible on the main road, and a ton of fruit sellers, selling the staples of SL diet, the pineapple, papaya, coconut and dwarf banana. All are terrific. SL cuisine itself is similar to that of south India, very spicy, though you expect them to tone it down for you if you don't look local. The hottest of SL food is the hottest food by temperature measure in the world (ghost chilis and all that) and I ate things that I considered hot, but I've a pretty strong palate. My parents had trouble eating some things, and my Chinese LTR found it not to be particularly hot compared to Sichuan or Hunan cuisine. The curries have tended to be light and more broth-like than creamy or soupy. Ginger and garlic are big food components, and most guys would probably just drop weight here from moving around and the leaness of most cuisine (assuming they avoid the british food that is also widely available in tourist areas).

[Global Entry]

Some photos of the local wildlife, these all from CMB...

[Global Entry]

These are from a wedding taking place at the Cinnamon Grand
















And a few more..clearly there are some nice physiques...

[TripleG]

talent seems to be lacking, WNB

[Biologist]

Cool datasheet!

WB those Tinder girls furiously

[Sp5]

Inspired by GE's post, I just browsed some dating websites looking at SL profiles. The number of women displaying their own photos has increased a lot. Four years ago, they all had Aishwarya Rai or flowers as their profile picture. Part of the global explosion in attention-trolling, I guess.

One of the pleasures of going to a place like SL is breaking down their traditional resistance to get to the horny woman underneath. The 48 yo Sinhalese widow I banged there was particularly panting for dick; her husband had died of a heart attack nine years before. She was breathing heavily on the second date, but she was concerned about the propriety of the affair and wanted to keep it on the down low. She didn't want to be seen in public, just stay in the room and fuck.

[Global Entry]

Sitting at the airport lounge in CMB waiting for a flight to Abu Dhabi, en route back to the USA. We spent the last several days of the trip just outside the confines of Yala National Park, which is on the southeast coast of SL. Its a good 5-6 hour ride by car from CMB, which limits the numbers of people who make it out there, but still, there are a good number of european tourists out there, and some Chinese as well. I think we encountered a single other American group, on an adjacent vehicle in the park while on an excursion (photo safari).

Yala, while worthwhile, doesn't quite compare to, say, Kruger, as far as animal diversity and density is concerned. I took two guided trips into the park, each being 80$ for everything other than a guide and driver tip (park fee, license, and the tour, which was 3 and a half hours, with the trip to the park perhaps being 30 minutes roundtrip). We were booking through the Cinnamon Wild Yala, another Cinnamon hotel, nicely outfitted and on agoda rates, around 225 including all taxes and not including food (which is cheap), per night.

The guides and drivers for the photo safaris are all Sri Lankan, as far as I could see. The Cinnamon Wild also is a two minute walk to a beautiful stretch of indian ocean, rough seas with heavy current but absolutely beautiful, windswept and immaculate. Much of the south coast has seas like this, though quite a bit calmer along the mid coast nearer to Matara and Mirissa.

A few shots from Yala - we saw two leopards as well, but the photos are shit.







Overall, I enjoyed being in SL. I'd say that the average is a bit lower than other places in Asia to the east, but that there are definitely good looking women here (and I don't aspire to the average). Amongst the hottest women are some of the flight attendants I saw, and the women who work in hospitality in general were more attractive than the rest of the population. I don't think getting dates would be difficult, the challenge might be to close. You'd definitely be noticed as a foreigner with a SL girl, but I didn't get the sense of overt hostility towards that situation (I think I saw it three times while here). As a place for a long term stay on a very low budget and with a decent infrastructure, it probably compares positively to Cambodia, if gaming girls is lower priority and beach and outdoor life is higher priority.

[Chengiz88]

Galle sounds v beautiful is definitely on my to do list. Have heard CMB is not all that great though. Last person I know went to CMB said it was pretty smelly (was a v uptight brit though)

[Seamus]

I spend a few weeks in Sri Lanka some years back. My conclusion was that it's an amazing country to visit and explore, but a terrible place for picking up women. Both because they're largely ugly (didn't see any like those first couple Tinder girls) and also not particularly down for quick bangs.

That's perfectly fine of course. Not every trip needs to be a about sleeping with lots of girls.

Personally I prefer Sri Lanka to India. It's much calmer, laid back, great beaches, and with better logistics for getting around. India is just too huge. The food is not quite as good in Sri Lanka though.

OP, do yourself a massive favor and check out the tea plantations in Nuwara Eliya and around Adam's Peak (you should climb AP too). Hands down some of the most beautiful landscapes I've ever seen.

[zayfran]

Yala national park is outstanding. The Sri Lankan spiritual connection to Elephants and watching the Mahouts in action was also something special.

BTW if you hop on a flight and head to the Andaman and Nicobar islands , India you can go snorkeling with an Asiatic elephant. Experience of a lifetime