Negombo
Each day, fishers take their oruvas (outrigger canoes) and go out in search of the fish for which Negombo is famous. They’re a fine sight as they sweep…
Getty Images/Lonely Planet Images
You don’t have to be on Sri Lanka’s west coast for long to realize that the coastline has something of a multiple personality. North of the capital is Negombo, a cheerful beach town crowned with church spires that is, thanks to its proximity to the airport, a staple of almost every visitor’s Sri Lankan journey. Head further north, though, and you enter a wild and little-visited region that seems to consist of nothing but coconut plantations and lagoons, sparkling in the sun and filled with dolphins.
Negombo
Each day, fishers take their oruvas (outrigger canoes) and go out in search of the fish for which Negombo is famous. They’re a fine sight as they sweep…
Negombo
Even though it could never compete in a beauty contest against many Sri Lankan beaches, Negombo's beach, which stretches north from the town right along…
Hikkaduwa & Around
About 2km north of Hikkaduwa is the Seenigama Vihara, perched on its own island. It’s one of only two temples in the country where victims of theft can…
Wilpattu National Park
At 1317 sq km, Wilpattu is Sri Lanka’s largest national park. Hidden in the dense, dry woodland, you'll (hopefully) find an array of wildlife that…
Hikkaduwa & Around
This ramshackle, private museum 3.5km north of Hikkaduwa tells the story through photographs and newspaper features of that dreadful day in 2004 when the…
Negombo
The Dutch showed their love of canals here like nowhere else in Sri Lanka. Canals extend from Negombo all the way south to Colombo and north to Puttalam,…
Hikkaduwa & Around
This small monument remembers the 35,000 people who lost their lives just in Sri Lanka during the 2004 tsunami and the hundreds of thousands of others…
Hikkaduwa & Around
Right on the coast north of Hikkaduwa is this statue of a standing Buddha facing the waves with his hands in the abhaya mudra (Buddha pose conveying…