12 Things We Wish We Knew BEFORE Travelling to Sri Lanka
well guys we are on the last leg of our trip across Sri Lanka in a Tok to and we thought this would be a perfect opportunity for us to share some things that we wish we knew before we came here uh there wasn't a whole lot of information for us when we were trying to plan this trip so we wanted to make this video as valuable to you guys as possible so here's 12 things we wish we knew before traveling to Sri [Music] Lanka being a is not a vacation it's freedom but it's also discipline it's an exchange of security for enhanced experiences it's a way of [Music] life your never too far to run run away run away run away until your Escape run away run away run away run away run away run away [Music] before we get into the episode we need to say thank you to level 8 for sponsoring this video and making this free content possible if you want to live the nomadic lifestyle you'll need luggage that can keep up with you on your journey that's why we choose level eight luggage we've been using level eight luggage for over a year now because like us they're all about traveling light and efficiently we use these 24-in check-in suitcases because although they're big enough to fit everything we need they're not too big to drag around big cities on adventures or on public transport such as buses and trains even though our suitcases have flown all over the world with us they're still in amazing condition and that's because their luggage is made from high quality materials that are built to last we love how lightweight they are making them super easy to carry around they're also made from waterproof material in case you get caught in a rainstorm which actually seems to happen a lot to us they also have 360° spinning wheels which makes it super easy to get through a busy airport as well as a lock feature for added security and peace of mind they also offer a lifetime warranty on all of their products if you're interested in leveling up your luggage gain try level eight click the link down in the description below all right now let's get into the episode okay the first thing I wish on you before we got to Sri Lanka is that ATMs are extremely reliable literally the first day we got here we had to go to an ATM to get cash out because we had to pay for a tour that we did on the first day we drove around for about 45 minutes going to different ATMs and none of them worked and I thought it was a problem with our credit card we rang out a credit card company they said no no problem we tried other cards they also said no there's no problem here it should be working uh I asked the concierge at the hotel we're staying at he said said I don't know ATM should be working I then got a Tuk Tok driver to drive me around again and he helped me find an ATM that accepted international cards which I thought was the only problem but it seems like ATMs are just unreliable as far as whether or not they're going to give you a certain amount of money a lot of the time I'll go to the ATM and it'll say insufficient funds when I know there's not insufficient funds in there and then sometimes it'll just say not accepted and we thought we' found an ATM that worked for us called Commercial Bank but then we tried another one and that didn't work so my biggest tip would be when you arrive in Sri Lanka make sure you have quite a bit of cash on you and just exchange it so you're not going to the ATM straight away and then if you do find an ATM that works um try and get as much out as you can unfortunately I tried that and it didn't really work either this ATM here right now I've used it 2 days in a row and it's telling me me I have insufficient funds even though I have the money in there so as we drive back to Colombo we're probably just going to have to stop a 3 or 4 ATMs and find one that works I don't know yeah so that's just a regular problem here in TR lanco ATM didn't work classic right another one this sucks cuz we got half a tank of gas and we got to get to Columbo and most of the petrol stations only take cash that was one of the ones that we were sure worked every time NDB that's hnb okay so we got to find an NDB one M DB yeah we only get 15,000 out which is the equivalent of about 20 bucks but that'll do us that'll do us petrol dinner and then we'll just throw this again [Music] tomorrow [Music] okay we've just stopped somewhere pretty local for lunch in the middle of we have no idea where one thing to know about the food in Sri Lanka is even if you ask for no spice it's always going to have a little bit of spice to it otherwise it has no flavor usually I ask for no spicy and they seem a little bit disappointed because I think that's just part of the food and they get a little bit worried that I'm not going to be able to eat it but just something to keep in mind if you're someone who doesn't like any spicy you might not like the local food cuz it always just is a little tiny bit at least this is our favorite shinkin meal that we've had is chicken Catu highly recommend trying it it's delicious it's sort of like a pad tie I guess that would be something I could compare it to it's very very [Music] good okay now this Mak seem like an obvious one now uh but we had no idea that we were allowed to rent a Tok Tok here in Sri Lanka to drive around the country before we came here we were really lucky that a subscriber reached out to us and told us that this was a thing because it's made our entire trip and we think it's the best way to get around during your time here we rented through a company called tuktuk rental.com so they organize everything for you they'll even drop off the Tok Tok to you they'll organize your life license for you and they give you a driving lesson so Lloyd did a full driving lesson before we took it and um made sure he was comfortable knew all the rules of the road and felt super comfortable before we set off also the good thing about this company is that it rents the Tuk TOS from locals and most of the profits go back to the locals so they make more money than just driving as a taxi driver and they get to have another job on the side if they want to so they can make more income and the employees that work for Tok to rental also there's profit sharing so a lot of the profits that the company makes goes back to the locals as well so we are huge fans of this company we will leave a link to everything we talk about in this video but we'll definitely leave a link to Tok Tok rental down in the description like I said this has made our trip we've seen so much more than we would have ever imagine seeing there's you can also organize to have a local drive your Tok to for you so what we did was we had a local Drive our took took from Ella to noira Alia so we could take the train still which is an amazing thing that you have to experience too and we didn't want to miss out on that so a local gets paid to drive the Tok Tok for you so you don't miss out on the incredible Sri Lankan [Music] trains how you going honey we're getting close hey it's pretty busy it's pretty pretty different than where we've been yeah it's um it's pretty hectic but I'm glad I'm doing this now after driving the Tuk took for 3 weeks already at the start of the trip I don't know if I could have done it no wow we're back where our journey began this is insane it's been the wildest month of Our Lives we're almost at the hotel thank goodness Lloyd's done an incredible job driving [Music] today [Music] oh my goodness we're exhausted but that brings us to our next point which is the hospitality has been like 12 out of 10 the entire time we've been in Sri Lanka like there hasn't been one time that someone hasn't bent over backwards to make sure that we're happy and comfortable even at times like we went to one hotel and the credit card machine wasn't working he basically ran around the entire city trying to help us find an ATM that worked yeah best Hospitality I think we've ever experienced in our lives would you say that as well yeah 100% like like Mandy said everywhere we've stayed I can't think of anywhere we've been where we didn't feel welcome even the one hotel like she said the ATM are the credit card machine wasn't working um there was a very noisy group in the room next to us and like the owner or manager just sort of bent over backwards to make sure that we're comfortable like he moved our room and everything so even just getting here now after driving for so long like they gave us a drink and made us feel welcome told us like everything about the hotel which I guess they should but just in general the local people seem to be really welcoming sorry I'm so tired they really want tourists here and um it's very obvious um that they're really grateful for your business and um yeah you won't be uncomfortable here I'm promising you that I'm tired enough so I think this tends to be the way in like almost all big cities as a general guide Sri Lankan people are absolutely beautiful they are so kind they are so helpful they will do anything to help you with Columbo sort of being the exception um once I guess you just come back to City Life and people are you know back to being busy focusing on making money working it's the same anywhere in the world so with Columbo being the exception it's really the only place that we had someone try to like rip us off throughout our entire time that we've been here other than that we've only had people be kind and helpful and and want to give us the best experience in Sri Lanka so I just wanted to mention that as [Music] well okay so this brings us to our next Point we've just come to a cafe called Black Cat Cafe unfortunately the upload speeds here for the Wi-Fi in Sri Lanka not the quickest we've been struggling with it pretty hard pretty much our entire trip so we've had to sort of source out different cafes in different places for us to be able to upload so it's just something to keep in mind if you are someone who works online or runs a business from your computer if you do schedule like any Zoom calls or anything like that it might be a challenge or if you're a YouTuber like us it's been a challenge so this is a good place so far we've been able to start getting our backlog of content uploaded we also found another one in Ella that was called chill Cafe we will be putting together a full travel guide for you guys but um just something to keep in mind if you're coming to Sri [Music] Lanka all right we got our work done we're just uh headed back to the hotel I'm going to stop off at the grocery store here there's pretty much one main grocery store it's called carle's Food City this one's the biggest one we've seen since we've been in uh Sri Lanka honestly they're not great like you can't get a lot of stuff you would get back home and in more developed countries like Thailand and Vietnam we really struggled couldn't find any like meat and produce really so it's quite limited that's one thing I wish we maybe knew before we came is that like getting Necessities particularly like toiletries and stuff I would be bringing your own if I was coming to Sri Lanka because you're not going to find what you find back home there's no like Sephora is that where you usually get stuff there's none of that here really so yeah grocery stores very limited but you can get by you're definitely better off buying like your veggies and fruits and stuff from like when you're out of the city from fruit stands and um staying at home state places that have like that grow their own produce it's very fresh and it's very nice I just don't know if they get the best quality stuff in this type of place um most people seem to grow their own things and be a bit more uh self- sustainable so I think that's kind of uh why it's not good but we'll see how this one is maybe it's a bit better cuz it looks a bit bigger and more established than the other ones we've been to this one this one looks like it might be okay it's more in the little towns there's not really any options at all yeah just yeah not the selection that we're used to I definitely think the meat selection isn't good because a lot of people are vegetarian here and don't consume as much meat as you know Canada Australia I think that's definitely plays a big part of it what are we here for water yeah what else is water here we definitely have that [Music] here I finally got um Camal te been searching through all of the food cities that we've gone to and they've all been sold out of it so that makes me happy finally got it done you love your cam I love it I drink probably about 10 a day [Music] okay we are about to check out of the hotel we managed to get a late checkout today but we've still got quite a lot of time to kill cuz we're not flying out till like midnight so uh we're going to take the Tuk Tok for a drive down the beach and and um just check that out cuz we didn't really get to check it out when we came to Colombo when we flew in uh and then somebody's going to come and pick up the Tuk Tok and we're just going to wait around the hotel for a few hours before we go though another thing we should mention that we wish we knew before we came is getting hot water in Sri Lanka is kind of hit and miss some hotels they do offer hot water but it doesn't really get hot it's kind of just luck of the drawer and I can understand that the infrastructure isn't really the best also blackouts expect blackouts pretty much everywhere every hotel we went to I think we got a blackout yeah um but it's not actually a big deal like most places have generators so the power might go out for like 20 minutes and then it'll go back on or it'll just go out for like 5 minutes they'll kick their generator on usually it's when when it's like bad weather or something like that plus I think they also try and save electricity and that's completely understandable but just be aware when you come here that you may have that issue wasn't a big deal for us so there actually is like restrictions in place in like in the city uh to preserve electricity we were told there's rules and regulations it gets shut off at a certain time because they are in a bit of an economic crisis at the moment that's pretty well known so something to keep in mind that it is very dark at night like in the city everything gets shut off and walking around could be a little bit scary cuz it's very [Music] dark so we just came down to uh goldface Park which is I don't know it feels like kind of like the main park on the beach here and we drove past it like four or five times actually when we're on our t t tour and it was just not good weather so I'm happy we got some sun and this is like our last thing we can do in Columbo yeah on the fence about if I want to fly the Drone or not the last time we flew it you see it in our last video it crashed into a tree they ask you how you are you you just have to say that you're fine when you're not really fine and this is a brand new drone we just bought so I'm like it's the last day do I want to risk a crash today it's a bit windy too it's pretty nicey yeah it's beautiful a couple more things uh that we wish we knew before we came here one being that cows are a traffic Hazard here in Sri Lanka um they wander around on the highways they're just like free range a lot of them we've been told don't even have owners they kind of just just roam around so just to to watch out for them if you are going to do the Tuk Tok uh route or you're going to take a scooter or anything just keep an eye out for the cows cuz they're everywhere also touching on Wildlife another thing to keep in mind is wild elephants um if you watched our videos you will see that we had a runin with a wild elephant you're not meant to feed them there's actually signs everywhere saying don't feed them not to give them like bananas and stuff even though we saw people doing that not to do it and they're also massive pests in a lot of places we stayed uh with a local family in Habana and uh oh an elephant actually came and visited came into their yard while we were sleeping and started eating all the mangoes off the trees um they're so they're actually a pretty big Pest and um they're really really aggressive and super fast so if you see them keep your distance again if you do the Tik Tok Journey um they can damage your Tok Tok and and uh and you so uh be super careful about that but we had no idea that they were um so aggressive before we came [Music] here as a side night this isn't like one of the things I wish we knew but shans seem to really love Australians every time I say I'm Australian they seem to be happy and they've told us multiple times that uh lots of Australians come here and they're really happy for all the austr Ians to come here so that's just a s they couldn't care less about Canadians cuz we don't have a cricket [Music] [Music] team okay whole hands on De yeah yeah I am T LD I am we had two more things we wanted to talk about for this video one was policemen they're everywhere when when you're driving around every 2 km there's a police checkpoint but they're so friendly like we've only had good interactions with them um we got pulled over one time without a license on our scooter so nice didn't try and get money off us they're always smiling great interactions so we wanted to let you guys know that the police here are really friendly now that might just be because we're tourists as far as I can tell I've said this to locals and they kind of look to me like yeah they're not really friendly to us yeah and then the other thing was that there's Uber here I I did not expect there to be Uber in Sri Lanka there's no Uber in other Asian countries and there was Uber here our Uber driver was actually a policeman and we just spoke to him the whole way about his son being uh a javelin thrower going to the Olympics and um he was really cool and it was like wow we just met a policeman and an Uber driver at the same time but uh he gave us his WhatsApp number and his son's name and everything so we're going to watch out for him cuz apparently he's going to the Paris Olympics in 2024 so cool pretty cool yeah so that's the last two things policemen are really friendly there's a lot of them don't be alarmed they're very nice they're helpful uh and there is Uber here if you need [Music] it [Music] all right well we're about to jump on our flight well I guess in a couple hours we've got a bit of time here at the airport um last thing I wanted to mention was just um about the Travel warnings so like when we were coming here um we were a little bit weary because of what mainstream media had said about Travel warnings for countries like Canada and Australia don't listen to that because I've felt safer here than I did in a lot of like big cities in Canada or in the United States Yeah just something to keep in mind if you if you want to travel here or even if you haven't thought about it consider it because we've enjoyed this trip so much and the Sri Lankan economy could really use it they used to get a lot more tourists than what they get now and um it would really help them out as well as well as you having a good time here um it' help the local people out so and the consensus is that they want more tourists so they're very happy with every tourist yeah absolutely as always thank you so much for watching we'll see you guys in the next video [Music] bye I'm just talking to the camera okay yeah in case you're wondering what's going on behind me four countries airports are the worst place to record I know but we always do it and we're always here run away run away run away into your Escape run away run away run away never too far to run run away run away
2023-12-08 17:13
