Unforgettable Sri Lanka: Kandy, Sigiriya & Nuwara Eliya 4-Day Journey

I want to express gratitude to Mr. Ushan from Lanka Tour Expert for his support in preparing the itinerary. I would like to thank Mr. Asanka for his service for the last 4 days tour. He was helpful in providing information, suggesting alternatives of places to visit (including restaurants), recovering my lost phone, and accompanying us to pharmacy to buy medicines.

I'm originally Sri Lankan and live in Canada, and I've travelled to 49 countries and done multiple tours over the years, and unfortunately this has to be the worst and most unprofessional tour I've been on. We worked with Aashik to customize the tour to visit all the places we wanted to over 5 days, and he mentioned that we would be getting a driver that was a tour guide as well to explain the sites to us. It wasn't off to a good start because our driver Althaf was about 15-20 mins late picking us up from the airport. Day 1 and 2 were overall not too bad, although the driving itself was a bit aggressive (i.e. lots of illegal passing, speeding up, only to slam on the brakes because of traffic), and when we went to Dambulla, we expected our guide/driver to come in and explain the significance of the temple, but he basically said the temple was known for its statues, and sent us off alone. Althaf also mentioned that his driver’s license had expired 2 weeks prior so someone else may be joining us, which was a bit alarming. I had to call Aashik to see who this stranger was joining us on our trip, and he assured me that all was well with his license and no one would be joining us, and he would give Althaf the information he needed to actually play tour guide at the sites we were going to the following day. On day 3, Althaf was supposed to pick us up at 8am at our hotel in Kandy, and was over an hour late picking us up (and kept saying he was 15 minutes away and traffic was bad). Had he just been honest, we would have taken a tuk tuk to the sacred tooth temple since we didn’t know he was going to keep us waiting for an hour. We knew we had limited time, so wanted to see the temple and the Kandy viewpoint before catching a train at 11am, hence why we wanted to start early. When we get to the temple, he sends us off on our own again, because he had to go and pick up our train tickets from someone, so once again, we walked around the temple clueless and got zero historical information or facts about the temple. Because of the late start, thanks to our driver, we only had time to do the temple and had to skip the viewpoint before catching our train. We were taking a train from Kandy to Nanu Oya (close to Nuwara Eliya) – it was a scenic 4 hour train ride, and our driver was supposed to pick us up at the Nanu Oya train station (which would have been a 2.5hr drive for him). When we get to the train station, our driver says he’s 20 minutes away, and will see us soon. We wait about an hour at a coffee shop, and when we call, he says he’s still 20 minutes away and sends his live location (which was 1.5 hrs away). He explains how he was driving from Kandy to Nanu Oya, and speeding so the police pulled him over, and because he had an expired license, they wanted to take him back to the police station, but he managed to bribe someone and get out, and was on his way. At this point, we called Aashik, frustrated because by then we had wasted over another hour waiting for this driver. Aashik offers to pick us up because he’s in the region, but he too was over an hour away. There is no comment about the level of unprofessionalism being late, not once, but twice, and making us wait around for his driver. We decide to take an uber to one of the tea plantations so that the day isn’t a complete waste, and tell Aashik/Althaf to pick us up from there. On day 4, we had planned to go to Horton Plains National Park first thing in the morning to hike to World’s End. As we’re 5 km away from the Park, the car stops working, at which point our driver mentions that the car is 20 yrs old (which we suspected since the arm rest in the car was broken). The driver calls over another car that was going in the same direction, and wants us to essentially hitchhike with the strangers to Horton Plains National Park. Luckily, there was a tuk tuk that was passing us, which he hailed over instead and had us go with the tuk tuk, saying that his car should be fixed in 20 minutes and he would meet us at Horton Plains National Park. When we get to the park, we realize there is no cellphone reception, so we finished the 3-4 hours hike and prayed he would be waiting for us at the entrance since there’s no reception to try to call someone incase he wasn’t there, which luckily he was this time. The one redeeming thing about this trip. When we get dropped off at our hotel in Ella, we realize there is no AC in the hotel (which was our assumption for anything that is supposed to be a 4 star hotel). Luckily we reached out to Aashik, who was able to get us a booking at a different hotel and we switched hotels. On day 5, we ask our driver to pick us up at 9am, and we were a few minutes late getting our luggage downstairs, so he went to go eat, and asks us to wait for him to finish his breakfast, so we wait about 20-30 minutes for him to finish eating. At some point, the driver asked me to lend him cash because he didn’t have any and was waiting for Aashik to wire him money – more unprofessional behaviour. We had requested to be dropped off in Moratuwa, and as we’re driving from Ella to Moratuwa, we realize the driver took a wrong turn, at which point he informs us he’s taking us to the airport instead and then another car will take us to Moratuwa, and apparently this had been okayed by Aashik with no communication to us. I called Aashik, who said that they had booked the car for another tour which is why we were being taken to the airport, which would have unnecessarily added an extra hour to 6 hour drive. It’s a good thing we were checking google maps sporadically! Overall, this entire tour was the most stressful and unorganized I’ve ever been on. It’s unfortunate that Aashik sold me on the tour saying that guides would be provided at each of the sites, and if not, the driver would play the guide. Because it would have been better using Kangaroo or another taxi service to do this tour given the amount of actual information we got from our “guide”/driver or just to use another tour company that was more organized and on time. I don’t recommend you book with this company if you want to actually enjoy your vacation because it will be one thing after another.

Our guides, Althaf and Ruhuman, were exceptional. They drove us from Colombo to Sigiriya to Kandy to Nurawa Eliya to Ella and back to Colombo and they did so under challenging driving conditions and always with amazing skills, good spirits, kindness and care for us. We are so grateful for them. We saw so much and we had an incredible experience thanks to these two wonderful guides. We will remember them and our fantastic time in beautiful Sri Lanka forever.

Great tour but short , Kingsfisher tours made everything wonderful on this trip . We would love to hire them again for our next trip to Sri Lanka . Very much recommended.

what a wonderful experience we had with kingfisher is unbelievable ! Our guide shan and his knowledge of the country made us feel like home and we are very comfortable traveling with him. We booked the tour months before our arrival and everything was perfectly organized and we were greeted with garlands. Sri Lanka is very beautiful and the culture, people made us feel that we need more time here Thank you Kingfisher Tours for everything

Tremendously enjoyable 4 days in central and hill country. Our guides were extremely accommodating and friendly. The manager was responsive to our changes in itinerary, and even helped us secure a booking for a popular crab restaurant in Colombo. The hotels in Kandy and Ella had great vistas. Especially the one in Ella, which overlooks the Ella gap. Caught a very nice sunrise.

Wonderful experience with Aashik and his team. We a family of 6 enjoyed Sri Lanka maximum with Kingfisher Team. Everything was perfectly organized and the vehicle was very clean. Aashik was always behind us over the phone calls guiding and checking weather everything was perfect We will come back soon and will never hesitate to use this company over and over

Wonderful tour of Sri Lanka with Kingfisher! My husband and I just returned from Sri Lanka and Maldives with Aashik and Kingfisher Tours. January 2023. We absolutely loved it! We contacted Aashik months in advance and told him that we only had four days. He made the best of it! We went on an elephant safari, saw waterfalls, tea plantations, beautiful lakes, buddhist temples, royal palaces, mosques, etc.! It was extremely fast paced, especially for these middle-age tourists, but it was worth it! Lol!! Make sure to visit the temple of the tooth relic in Kandy. It was truly a highlight of the trip. Please note that you will have to pay for all of the entrance fees in cash so make sure to bring double the amount you think you will need. We were running low, so Aashik took us to several ATMs. They would not accept our card so he even loaned us some Sri Lankan rupees and added it to our tab. He also arranged a hotel and airfare over to Maldives. Aashik did an excellent job and he speaks great English! Highly recommend!

After making the booking via Viator, the following communication was handled via via WhatsApp. My questions were answered quickly. Within the route determined according to the offer, I was able to arrange the program items individually. For example, we had agreed to travel by train instead of by car from Kandy to Nuwara Eliya. One day before the pick-up, I was given the WhatsApp contact details of the driver. Our driver Aswan was always on time and very friendly. He reacted flexibly to our wishes and pointed out shopping opportunities to us but never urged us to go anywhere. He also accompanied us to the railway track in Kandy to ensure that we were on the correct train. The car was in very good condition and comfortable. There were no problems with gasoline, as Kingfisher, as a licensed tour operator, has an exemption of the petrol limit for individuals. I can recommend a round trip through Sri Lanka at this time without hesitation. We felt safe and none of the sights were crowded. The people were so happy that we visited their country.

If i get a chance to rate this companh more than 5 star i will not hestitate to rate them but to let other travelers know Sri Lanka is very very safe and there is no problems at all, We used Kingfisher company for our 4 days stays in Sri Lanka and their representive Aashik is very helpful booking us the hotels and arranging tour plan. Our driver is so friendly and his driving skills are very cool. If you are planning for a good memorable Sri lanka tour you should definitely choose Kingfisher as your Tour Operator Simone Hoyt United Kingdom