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  • Day 10

    Sinharaja Forest Reserve

    January 24, 2019 in Sri Lanka ⋅ ⛅ 23 °C

    Long day trip out into the rainforest today. Since we could only find expensive guided tour options here, we decided to once again DIY. We had a car pick us up at our accommodation and take us the three hours up into the hills north-east of Galle, close to where the forest was located.

    Stopped at a village in the middle of nowhere, and rode a tuk tuk the rest of the way. People kept pestering us to sell us their guiding services which we didn't want, but by the time we walked down to the ticket booth the lady there insisted we could only go into the park accompanied by a guide. She said the official price was 1000 rupees per head, so we asked her to find us one, since the guys hanging around all insisted the price was 3000 per person!

    Eventually a guy settled for taking us both at 2500 total, but only if we tagged along with another couple he was already guiding. Probably the dodgiest setup we've come across so far in Sri Lanka!

    Spent a couple of hours walking through the rain forest, spotting a few lizards, spiders, snakes and other small creatures. Eventually arrived at a waterfall where quite a few tourists were swimming, though since we didn't have swimmers or towels we opted against having a swim.

    Another couple of hours wandering back and getting a tuk tuk down to the village where our driver was waiting. Since we'd left home at 6am, both of us were now quite tired and nodded off in the car on the way back!

    Relaxed in the room for a little while before freshening up and going to a decent nearby restaurant for dinner, where we had .. pizza!
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