If you’re craving long white sandy beaches and a slow pace of life, only interrupted by the intermittent beeping of tuk tuks and the wash of the ocean, the south coast of Sri Lanka will not disappoint.

The south coast is a beach lover’s dream. Sprinkle into the mix, a hip cultural heritage town, bustling markets and a national park that is home to elephants, crocodiles and leopards, the south coast has a lot to offer.

Galle

Whether you pull into Galle’s bus stand or train station, one of the first things that you will notice, apart from the road side hawkers selling spicy delights, is the oval shaped international cricket stand opposite.

Fringed by the Indian Ocean on both sides and situated in front of the impressive Galle Fort, it is stated as one of the most picturesque grounds in the world, and it’s easy to see why. However, apart from one entertaining venture, whilst volunteering, cricket isn’t really my cup of tea! Galle Fort on the other hand is.

Galle Fort – UNESCO World Heritage Site

The first time I stepped inside the fort I wasn’t quite sure what to expect, but one thing was for sure I wasn’t expecting a European medieval style town, with a tropical hue; we are after all in Sri Lanka, but this is like no other place in Sri Lanka.

This fortified town would not look out of place in southern Italy, Portugal or France, and yet there’s a deep sense of the exotic and the tropics, creating a captivating and magical juxtaposition.

As you wander through the main gates, Galle fort is a welcome sigh of relief and gentle retreat from the frenetic streets outside. Cocooned inside museums, cafes, restaurants, quirky boutiques and stylish hotels, blend with art galleries to create a bohemian vibe.

You can roam and lose yourself in the colourful narrow streets, free from traffic other than the odd tuk tuk, stopping occasionally for a lazy cappuccino or perhaps lunch in a laid-back courtyard beneath vines of jasmine and bougainvillea.

A favourite treat for me after a long day volunteering at VSL, was taking tea on the veranda of the Galle Fort Hotel, and watching the sun go down to the soothing sounds of the piano and pretending I was mildly posh – very decadent!

My first visit to Galle Fort was in 2014 when Sri Lanka was only just beginning to gain in popularity after the civil war ended in 2009, and at the time it was relatively subdued. On subsequent trips I noticed year by year how it had attracted more and more international visitors, with a marked increase in establishments catering to tourists.

However, the fort is not merely a tourist attraction, it’s also very much a working community with schools and colleges, courts, administrative building, churches, temples and mosques and has been since the Dutch built it in 1663.

As a major trading port between Asia and Europe for 200 years, the fort is steeped in history. When the 2004 tsunami hit, much of the surrounding area was decimated but the fort walls held firm and the buildings inside were undamaged.

When you have tired of roaming the streets, you can take a stroll around the wall. With the salty sea breeze in the air and the crashing of the ocean below, this makes for a really pleasant evening stroll. If you watch the ocean closely enough, particularly near the Neptune Bastion, turtles big and small, can be spotted beneath the waves. Watching these gentle creatures with their heavy shells moving with ease through the swell of the ocean is beautiful.

Galle fort walls – perfect for an evening stroll

Outside the fort

Galle itself is very much a busy thriving town and a great place to shop for fresh produce if you are self-catering. As you leave the Galle Fort along the promenade, fisherman sell their daily catch at great prices! You can’t get much fresher fish than this.

The Old Dutch Market is also a great place for flowers, spices and a vast melange of fruit and vegetables. I’ll never cease to be amazed by the delectable sweetness and taste of fruit away from England – from the simple banana to passion fruit, pineapple, lychees, succulent mangoes and soft papaya the fruit in Sri Lanka is simply, sumptuously heavenly!

Accommodation around Galle

There’s a wealth of accommodation to suit all budgets in Galle, from the very basic to the very grand! I have not stayed in Galle accommodation, as all my trips were linked to Volunteer Sri Lanka and I was housed in Hirumbura, a small village, just outside the town.

After looking on booking.com and Airbnb I have noticed that prices in the fort are significantly higher than outside and this is perhaps because as much of a third of the properties inside are owned by Europeans and thus price tags tend to reflect European prices. The same can be said for the restaurants and shops where few bargains are to be had. If you’re looking for budget accommodation, you’re probably better off staying in the town of Galle itself or in nearby resorts such as Unawatuna.

Colombo to Galle via public transport

There’s a multitude of regular buses from Colombo, and you can choose either the Expressway or regular:

Expressway buses run from Maharagama Highway Bus Station and take about 1 hr 40.
Regular buses run every half an hour from Bastian Mawatha Bus Terminal and take about 3 ½ hours.

Personally, I tend to choose regular over expressway because they are approximately half the cost (around Rs.200 vs Rs.450) and if you are in the centre of Colombo, you will need to first get a bus from Colombo Fort to Maharagama which takes about 1 hr, whereas you can walk from Colombo Fort to Bastian Mawatha Bus Terminal in about 10 minutes.

Not taken a bus in Sri Lanka before? Check out my post ‘Bentota: first stop luxury and a step onto public transport’.

There’s also a regular train service running from Colombo Fort to Galle, in the direction of Matara. This stops at many popular stations along the coastal route including Bentota, Unawatuna and Mirissa.

Useful tip: if you’re just spending one day in Galle, you can leave your luggage at Galle train station for a nominal fee.

Moving down the coast from Galle to Yala, the route is sprinkled with towns and villages, of varying sizes. Regular buses from Galle bus stand make jumping off to explore easy, and with many sun-soaked beaches at your fingertips it’s not hard for a few days, a week…to slip away beneath a palm tree.

Unawatuna

6 km from Galle and easily accessible by regular buses or tuk, Unawatuna is a popular resort with tourists wanting a livelier beach scene. As you step off the bus and leave the main road, the narrow strip down to the beach is lined with places to stay, tourist shops and restaurants. It has a very typical beach resort style vibe and is busier than others further down the south coast.

The wide sweeping golden beach is perfect for a day’s sunbathing, and sunbeds are cheap to hire or free if you order a drink. The ocean is slightly gentler here due to a fringing reef, therefore, dips in the sea are easier than other beaches where the waves can become quite spectacular.

Once a small beachside village, Unawatuna underwent significant development following the devastation of the 2004 tsunami. However, in a rush to build environmental guidelines were ignored and buildings were erected directly on the sand, thus creating a somewhat concreted façade more commonly seen in big tourist resorts. However, if you want to watch the sun go down with a G&T and enjoy a livelier night-time bar scene Unawatuna is your place (lively by Sri Lankan standards – we’re not talking Magaluf!)

Mirissa

Further down the coast road, about an hour on the bus from Galle is Mirissa. The word gently flows of the tongue and delicately places you beneath the swaying palms of a small but beautifully formed beach.

My friend and I have a recurring fantasy about Mirissa. It’s a simple fantasy – a perfect crescent shaped beach, the sparkling azure of the ocean, and sipping a fresh coconut whilst lounging on a hammock…

…we only have to mutter the word ‘Mirissa’ to each other, and we’re soothingly transported back to paradise.

There’s little to do in Mirissa other than relax on the beach and whilst there is some development, most of it is in the way of small back-packer style guest houses, little cafes and pop-up market stalls. In recent years, Mirissa has attracted many more visitors thus the beach is gaining a lot more attention, but the last time I went it still had that laid-back traveller ambience. Let’s hope it stays that way!

The ocean here can get quite rough and so relaxing swims aren’t necessarily the order of the day but jumping the waves is great fun!

Whale watching is a popular attraction in Mirissa. I’ve not been, and I’ve heard mixed reviews, with some people loving it and others rightly raising conservation questions. Unfortunately, as whale spotting has become more popular it has led to a rampant rise in boats offering excursions and with it, concerns about the whales’ welfare and also to one’s own personal safety. If this is something, you’re interested in, be sure to check out the company thoroughly before parting with your money.

Other notable beaches in the area include:

Ahangama & Midigama – popular with surfers, with lots of cheap accommodation
Tangalla – another near perfect beach!

Useful tip: It’s important to note that many of Sri Lanka’s beach are not the calm placid waters you find in other destinations, understandably the ocean attracts a lot of attention from surfers and so it’s a great place to come and learn to surf.

Yala National Park

Situated on the South-East coast, 170 km from Galle, Yala is Sri Lanka’s most famous National Park blanketing an area of 130,000 hectares and embracing the Indian Ocean along one side.

It’s lagoons, grassy plains and light forests are the perfect location to spot elephants, monkeys, buffalo, wart hogs, sloth bears, crocodiles and it has the largest concentration of leopards in the world (though this doesn’t mean they are easy to spot!).

With 44 varieties of mammals and 215 bird species, Yala was stated by Forbes ‘as the best safari destination outside Africa’.

The absolute highlight for me was observing elephant families going about their elephant business – such an incredible sight. I’ll never forget the way a tiny calf was gently pushed between her elders as she naughtily tried to roam off – just gorgeous.

I thoroughly enjoyed my whole day in Yala. I observed a fascinating range of animals, birds and reptiles.

A minor irritation for me was the swarming of jeeps, that seemed to come out of nowhere, when a leopard was spotted sleeping in a tree. Whilst I fully appreciate that seeing leopards is one of the main reasons people come to Yala and the only way to see them is by jeep, I still didn’t enjoy the rush through the grasslands and tail back once one was spotted. Perhaps sometimes the mysterious quality of not seeing is more alluring than actually seeing.

A fascinating fact about the Yala wildlife, is that during the 2004 tsunami which wreaked havoc on much of the southern coast, the animals in Yala were unharmed as great swathes moved inland before the waves struck thus promoting a theory that the animals have a sixth sense warning them about the impending danger.

Accommodation near Yala

I’d definitely recommend staying close to Yala, so you can get up early in the morning refreshed rather than arriving ready to drop after several hours on public transport.

There’s plenty of accommodation in the surrounding areas of Kataragama, Tissaamaharama (Tissa) and Kirinda ranging from eco-camps and guest houses, to luxury hotels.

We bedded down in a beach hut at the Eco Friendly Kirinda Beach Resort, a beautifully desolate spot, where the buzz of any towns seems far, far away. It leads on to a magnificently deserted wind-swept beach, where you can walk for miles without seeing a soul; the ocean is wild and treacherous, but absolutely glorious to watch.

How to organise your Yala safari

Many of the hotels in the area organise trips to Yala, including where we stayed at the Kirinda Beach. You can also pick up a safari jeep with a trekker at the main gates and although you can do this on the day, I’d recommend booking online through the Yala website as the safari is becoming more popular with visitors.

Getting to Yala via public transport

Public transport routes can be seen on the Yala website.

Sri Lanka’s South Coast – From Galle Fort to Yala