Sri Lanka Kandy Trip With Scenic Upcountry Train Journey-2 Days
Table of Contents
- Tour itinerary
- What are the places to visit on the Sri Lanka Kandy trip with the upcountry train journey?
- Sri Lanka Kandy Trip with private transport
- Sri Lanka Kandy Trip starts in Colombo
- Sri Lanka Kandy Trip visiting: Pinnawala elephant orphanage
- Elephant bath
- Sri Lanka Kandy Trip Visiting spice garden
- Kandy city tour
- Shopping in Kandy
- Sri Lanka Kandy Trip: Royal botanical garden
- Sri Lanka Kandy Trip: Tooth relic temple
- Upper Lake
- Downtown Kandy
- The scenic upcountry train journey
- Nuwara Eliya
- Visiting Victoria park
With Sri Lanka Kandy Trip, you can enjoy a conformable riding experience, in one of our modern fully air-conditioned comfortable vehicles. We allocate a separate vehicle for each booking, which means on this Sri Lanka 2 days trip to Kandy and Nuwara Eliya you have maximum privacy without any intruders. This is a refreshing change giving you the liberty to enjoy the tour on your own and do it at your own pace. You are not a part of a big crowded bus anymore.
Even though there is a documented program giving the instructions to our experienced guide about the proceedings of the tour, you are welcome to make slight twists in order to make your Kandy one day tour more interesting.
Tour itinerary
- Day 1: leave Colombo early morning, places to visit en route, are Pinnawala elephant orphanage, spice garden, tooth relic temple, downtown Kandy
- Day 2: Take the early morning train journey on the upcountry railway track from Peradeniya, Places to visit on day 2 are Nuwara Eliya city, Gregory Lake, Victoria Park, and the Tea factory & garden
What are the places to visit on the Sri Lanka Kandy trip with the upcountry train journey?
- Pinnawala elephant orphanage
- Tooth relic temple
- Royal botanical garden
- Spice garden
- Downtown Kandy
- Nuwara Eliya city
- Tea factory and garden
- Gregory Lake
- Victoria park
Sri Lanka Kandy Trip with private transport
The vehicle allocated to your Kandy one day tour from Colombo is a comfortable and air-conditioned car, van, mini-coach, or a coach, depending on the number of persons in your group. Our booking engine features a special functionality called “group booking”, which gives you discounts as the number of persons in the group increases.
Sri Lanka Kandy Trip starts in Colombo
The Kandy one day tour starts in Colombo, however, since this is a private tour the starting point and location are flexible; you can discuss with our consultant and arrange a pick-up location. There might be an additional charge if you start the tour in a faraway city from Colombo, but there will be no supplement charge if the pick-up location is within the borders of Colombo.
Colombo is a crowded city with hordes of vehicles, especially during the rush hour, therefore we usually pick up our customers before the traffic buildup and leave the city within a few minutes and thereby avoiding the traffic congestion and saving time. If the starting point is the Colombo international airport, it is very convenient for the trip as the airport is located outside of Colombo and towards Kandy. We can arrange your pick-up timing for the Kandy one-day tour on par with your arrival time.
After the drive-through Colombo suburb, the travelers arrive at the more greenish surrounding and fewer traffic regions, this point onward, until Kandy you will encounter only moderate traffic, except in cities. You will roll up along beautiful coconut plantations, rubber plantations, rice paddies, green-capped Jagged Mountains, and beautiful countryside in which dominating color is green. After about 3 hours drive you will arrive at the Pinnawala elephant orphanage, which is the first stop on the Kandy one-day tour unless otherwise, you did not request a stop before that.
Sri Lanka Kandy Trip visiting: Pinnawala elephant orphanage
Pinnawala elephant orphanage is the first stop on Kandy’s one-day tour, which is one of the important places to visit in Sri Lanka, it is the home of a bunch of elephants, which was rescued from the Sri Lankan jungle as they were struggling with life. Some of these jumbos we sick while some other were wounded, due to many reasons, at the time they were found. These perilous and helpless animals are brought to the orphanage and taken care of under the supervision of doctors and caretakers. However, these animals are not released to the jungle again, due to some constraints that put their lives in danger.
Elephant bath
The Elephant bath is very interesting and a large number of people is gathering to witness the elephant bath, which happens in the nearby river. The 2 hours showpiece is a unique experience for everyone, where about fifty animals gather to have a refreshing bath.
Sri Lanka Kandy Trip Visiting spice garden
You will spend about one hour at the elephant orphanage before continuing the journey to Kandy, however, there is another stop arriving at Kandy, which is the spice garden. The spice garden showcases a large number of spices and herbs found in the tropics. The flowers, fruits, plants, and trees of various spices and herbs are on the display and will be introduced to you during the guided tour of the garden. This is the opportunity to discover a large number of spices as well as herbs and learn their economical benefits of them.
At the spice garden, you will be given some information about the most ancient indigenous healing system known as Ayurveda, which is in practice on the island for more than 2000 years. Spices and herbs are not only used for making delicious food but also extensively used in Ayurveda to prepare medicine. You can also sip a cup of herbal tea here; you are also given a healing treatment (oil massage) to rejuvenate your mind and body as a welcome gesture from the garden. The stop at the spice garden will be around 1 hour and it can be a bit longer depending on your interest in the trees and plants.
Kandy city tour
The Kandy one-day tour reaches its climax with arrival to Kandy, which is the next stop after the spice garden. There are many places to explore in Kandy however due to time constraints only the important tourist attractions are included in the Kandy one-day tour.
Shopping in Kandy
The hill country city of Kandy is a well-developed city compared to most other cities in Sri Lanka and it is equipped with modern infrastructure. However, Kandy is more laid-back compared to Colombo and particularly nightlife in Kandy is very much quiet. However, hundreds of shops are a particular draw to the city, and every Kandy city tour includes visits to a few shops allowing the visitors to purchase valuable items if they wish to. Kandy is great for shopping with plenty of shops selling authentic Sri Lankan products such as Tea, spices, gems, jewelry, wood carvings, and clothing including products from high-end fashion designers available.
Sri Lanka Kandy Trip: Royal botanical garden
Here, the guests have their own 1-hour free time to explore the beautiful garden, which is the most popular botanical garden on the island and attracts more than 2 million people every year. The botanical garden encompasses more than 147 acres of land and sits 460 meters above sea level. The green cover of the Peradeniya botanical garden is comprised of more than 4000 different species of trees and plants.
Sri Lanka Kandy Trip: Tooth relic temple
Tooth relic temple, if you have a religious buff, this is the most interesting attraction on Kandy one day tour, and of course, the tooth relic temple is the most sacred Buddhist temple on the island and is visited by millions of devotees every year. You will be taken to the temple and introduced to important places such as the image house, museum, Natha Devala, Pattiruppuwa, and relic chamber in a guided tour with our experienced guide.
Upper Lake
Upper lake plateau overlooking Kandy city is a viewpoint, giving a bird’s eye view of the beautiful city of Kandy, tooth relic temple, Kandy Lake, and Udawattakele sanctuary. The viewpoint lies about 200 meters above the city, which is situated in a valley, surrounded by mountains.
Downtown Kandy
The Kandy one-day tour is incomplete without a visit to downtown Kandy, where there are thousands of shops selling various items such as gems and jewelry, textiles, vegetable, fruits, leatherwear, tea, souvenir, and many more. Perhaps you might like to have your own time in the busy market area; however, the guide will stop the vehicle in a few locations, which is important to most visitors to Sri Lanka. During the city tour, you can buy various handmade souvenirs, Batik, Silk, clothing, Tea, Authentic Sri Lankan craft, and jewelry, to remember your Kandy one-day tour.
This tour includes entire ground transportation with English speaking tour guide (please inquire if you require a guide for other languages), site guides, all the entrance fees, pick-up from the hotel, departure transfer, and all taxes.
In Pinnawala you can wash an elephant and make an elephant back ride in the beautiful countryside. However, this is an optional activity and the participants have to pay at the site. Your memorable Kandy one-day tour comes to the end with the visit to the shopping area of Kandy and the departure transfer follows. The departure transfer takes around 3 hours from Kandy to Colombo. If you are heading to the airport the time taken for the transfer is about 30 minutes less.
The scenic upcountry train journey
On the second day of the trip, you will be taking the country train journey from the Peradeniya railway station. Your driver/guide take you to the railway station and buy the tickets for you. However, you will take the train journey while your driver guide drives to the railway station, where you are getting off at (Nanu Oya railway station).
Sri Lanka’s hill country rail trip is a fiendish proposition not only for any rail journey in Sri Lanka but also for many journeys on mountain rail tracks around the world. An 1800 meters high spine of mountains that rises in the middle, runs down to zero as it spreads at a 360° angle while unfolding into high plateaus, fissuring into canyons and sheltering mist-shrouded small towns.
When the railway track was built here in the early 18s, it was hailed as a remarkable engineering feat. The steep railway track snaked through green-capped mountains and inched up precipitous slopes on its way to the highest mountain in Sri Lanka, Pidurutalagala. The mountain scenery on the rail journey is hailed by travelers around the world for many centuries, starting with Britishers who vacationed in Sri Lanka in the early 18s. The upcountry train nicknamed “Udarata Menike”, still plies between Colombo and the hill country of Sri Lanka and carries thousands of school kids, office workers, tea factory workers, and sightseers every day.
It might be a daunting task to get a seat and travel comfortably on this popular train route due to the high demand, that’s why we book all your train tickets in advance with the central railway.
Nuwara Eliya
You will be making a brief Nuwara Eliya city, which is the last bastion of your rail journey that sits 1800 meters above sea level. You will be visiting Gregory Lanka, Nuwara Eliya city, Victoria Park, and a tea garden before heading to Colombo to finish your trip.
The hills country of Sri Lanka is consisting of a few popular hill stations such as Bandarawela, Ella, and Haputale. However, Nuwara Eliya is the lost loved hills station on the island and more than half of the holidaymakers take refuge in this mountain resort. The beautiful city offers a unique climate and vegetation.
The contrast between low land beach resorts and hill country is vast, but palm-fringed sandy beaches are the biggest draw of this tropical holiday destination, and Sri Lanka is most popular as a beach holiday destination among travelers around the world.
Nuwara Eliya also known as Little England is the hub of Sri Lanka’s hill country, which is an emerald, mist-enshrouded region, dominated by the green-capped mountain, tea gardens, and valleys that are many centuries old. The mountain cities are connected with an enduring train system, built during the British colonial era, in the early 1860s.
Visiting Victoria park
Victoria Park is one of the most popular tourist places in Nuwara Eliya, which attracts a large number of travelers every day. It is one of the best places to witness flowering plants in Sri Lanka. The visitors can witness hundreds of different flowering plants and trees in the flower garden and most of them thrive in cool climes, therefore most flowers that you encounter at victoria park are difficult to see in the lower elevated parts of Sri Lanka.