My soon to be wife and I are off to Sri Lanka for our honeymoon. Can anyone shed any light on the currency situation. From reading various websites in most built up and tourist places you spend dollars or euros, but it is probably best to transfer sterling to local Sri Lanka rupee once you arrive in Sri Lanka (something to do with it being a closed currency).

Also if anyone is able to give us an idea of daily costs for food ect that would be very helpful.

Many thanks

definitely get all the currency when you are there.
we took some UK pounds but there are loads of cash machines everywhere and used those all the time.

we stayed in budget hostels typically about £10/15 PP/PN.

Daily street food costs peanuts & is unbeatable.
Find places that sell lunch boxes – They will be the best curries you get anywhere.

As for a few tips.
There is an awesome Indian restaurant in Galle – near the lighthouse. – sounds odd but Galle is a bit of a trendy expensive spot & this was the only reasonable place we found. We stayed at Mrs Wijenayakes – A great old lady.

Sigiriya – stayed the Flower Inn & ate the awesome restaurant next door – that does cookery courses.

Polonnaruwa – we stayed at the Devi Tourist House – good food & hospitality.

If you have not planned your itinery yet & are time restricted I would skip Annuradaphura but do Pol & Sigiriya as they are quite close together.

Kandy – see if you can get Lampries as a lunch pack from the cafe at the far end of the lake.

Enjoy – it is a beautiful country. Travel by train or the many private buses is dead easy
You’ll have a lovely time

Thanks, will take sterling and transfer in that case, we land in columbo and we be stopping off in Pinnawala, Kandy, Sigirya, Minneriya National park and then finish in Chilaw so will keep an eye out for the spots you recommended. Looking forward to it, hoping to bring back vast amounts of tea in luggage!

I spent 6 weeks there back in 2000, spent £600 and we lived like kings 🙂 Turtle and elephant places are worth a look, the botanic park in Kandy is well worth a look, the black scorpians and fruit bats are an added attraction, I hated the trains and travelled mainly by bus or cab, the roads are mad though. You will get fed up of empty tropical beaches….eventually 🙂

We did a guided tour there for our honeymoon in 2013 and loved it. Took sterling and changed it at airport. Great place, I loved it!

Went in 2012, lovely country. Make sure that you have plenty of small denomination money to buy king coconuts from the street sellers, tip the shoe-keeper at temples, etc. We’re talking pence not pounds (rupee equivalent). We used SL rupees everywhere, cash machine or changed at local banks

Friendly people, many of whom have very little, but are always smiling

Much referred the wild elephants at Minneriya to the orphanage at Pinnawala

We took dollars and used them for hotels and also changed to rupees for paying for restaurants.
For a couple of days of luxury relaxation stay at a tea bungalow.

Yeah. Make sure you get plenty of small notes when you get your currency exchanged.
I got diddled by a bloke at the airport who grabbed my bags, carried them about 20m to the back of a taxi and then held out his hand for a tip. In it he had a rolled 1000 rupee note (about £5 at the time if memory serves me right), indicating that this is what he would like as a tip. I was tired from the flight, hot, a bit confused and was trying to do a quick exchange calculation in my head. In the end I just gave him a 1000 rupee note, so he did well out of that one!
After that, it was strictly 100/200 rupee tips here and there. We also had loads of one dollar notes for tips in the Maldives and we used some of those too….

Reading this thread had me looking back through some of my photos….

The view from Sigiriya Rock is pretty amazing….(as is the rickety stair case to get up there)……

[url=https://flic.kr/p/gnEqUS]13-06-27 DSC_6333[/url] by STW stumpy01, on Flickr

One of many amazing colourful temples that we stopped at…..

[url=https://flic.kr/p/gnEpz7]13-06-28 DSC_6406[/url] by STW stumpy01, on Flickr

You can get quite close to the elephants in the national parks – we saw loads at the Udawalawe national park on a jeep tour. One large bull elephant even charged out jeep, as there were new borns nearby!

[url=https://flic.kr/p/gnEo5d]13-06-29 DSC_6806[/url] by STW stumpy01, on Flickr

You’ll have a great time!!