Look at all the things you can do in 1 day in Sri Lanka – YOU need to visit!

Sri Lanka took me by surprise! Its now one of my favorite countries of the 69 I have visited so far. Probably in my top 5. Here are all the things I did in just one day, on a road trip from Colombo to Sigiriya. Hopefully, after seeing this post, you will be convinced to visit this amazing country too. Start with an amazing Sri Lankan breakfast of hoppers; they are kind of like bowl shaped crepes usually with an egg inside. People fill them with curry and sambol, then roll them up and eat them like a burrito. Very delicious.

Driving around the country, you will see tons of beautiful roadside temples that eventually, you will stop noticing them (kind of like castles in Ireland).

Our first stop was this elephant sanctuary/orphanage.

After this we had lunch at a local hotel, set by a nice creek.

Along the way, we also saw tons of wildlife including monkeys and elephants that hold up traffic by walking into the roads!

One of the coolest things I saw on my approximately 2 week trip in Sri Lanka was the Rangiri Dambulla Cave Temple, a UNESCO world heritage site. Nothing prepared me for how beautiful the statues and paintings on the walls inside the caves were. Also, there were very few tourists although the site was world class. Contrast this with visiting another world class site like the Vatican, where there are so many tourists, you will be barely able to walk!

Close by the cave temple is the Golden Temple where you can see a huge Buddha statue.

After the Golden Temple, we went to the Sri Lankan Cultural Center to watch a traditional dance show.

This was the last activity of the day, and then we proceeded to our hotel – The Water Garden Sigiriya. We arrived at night and it was gorgeous.

Here is a room tour:

As we were tired, we ordered in and then prepared for the next day – climbing the Sigiriya Rock. A huge rock structure with an ancient fortress on top! Hopefully, from this post, you can a sense that there is so much to see and do in this country. This was only 1 out of about 14 days we would spend exploring the country! More to come…