Photo Friday: Lipton's Seat, Sri Lanka

Er ... what sweeping views?

At the look-out point on the Dambatenne tea plantation, Sir Thomas Lipton used to bring guests for picnics and to survey the sheer sweeping views below.

Our Sri Lanka top tips and some practicalities

We spent 10 days in Sri Lanka in late June/ early July 2017, visiting the 'cultural triangle', the east coast and the hill country.

Tea pickers in the hill country

We really enjoyed our trip and wanted to share some of the things we learnt about the practicalities of travelling around the 'Pearl of the Indian Ocean'. Obviously, after a 10 day trip, we are far from being experts on the country, but the information below is a combination of our own experience, what others told us and what we learnt through our research. 

As ever, do feel free to add any corrections or additions in the comments below.

What to do in Ella, Sri Lanka

Ella or Elle is a small town in Sri Lanka's hill country, surrounded by tea plantations. It's a good spot for a few days of hiking, eating and drinking tea. Here are our top things to do while you are there.

1. Take in the views from Little Adam's Peak
A walk up Little Adam's Park is about an hour and a half's round trip from the main street in Ella. The views of the surrounding mountains and across to Ella Rock make it is very much worth the trip.

Where we stayed - Sri Lanka

We spent 10 days exploring the island of Sri Lanka, mostly in small family-run 'homestay' style hotels. Of the different accommodation website, booking.com seemed to work best. Here's where we went and where we stayed:

1) Habarana - Mutu Village

To explore the 'Cultural Triangle' area of Sri Lanka, we based ourselves in Habarana, as it is well located for visiting Sigiriya, Dambulla, Polonnaruwa and Minneriya National Park. Following a strong recommendation in an online travel discussion, I booked us into Mutu Village, where we stayed for 4 nights. It was the best place that we stayed in our time in Sri Lanka.

The balcony of our treehouse