Reopened: 14 days in a country in transition

The flight into Bandaranaike

Arriving at Bandaranaike International Airport in early December 2022 felt different from previous arrivals in two ways. The airport was quieter than I expected — not deserted, but well below the pre-COVID, pre-crisis bustle. And the immigration officer, after examining my passport, looked up and said something I hadn’t heard at an immigration desk before: “Welcome back. We’re glad you’re coming.”

He may say this to everyone. It didn’t feel performative.

Sri Lanka in December 2022 was in a specific moment: past the worst of the crisis (the July political upheaval, the August fuel nadir), in the early stages of IMF-supported recovery, and cautiously welcoming the returning tourist season. The December-April high season — the winter window when the south and west coasts are at their most beautiful — was beginning. The question was whether visitors would come.

If you want to retrace this route today


Route	Colombo → Sigiriya (Cultural Triangle) → Kandy → Ella (hill country, by train) → Yala → Galle → Mirissa → Colombo
Time needed	14 days as travelled here; a tighter version is possible if you cut a day from the Cultural Triangle or the south coast
Cost today	Sri Lanka remains inexpensive by international standards, though prices have risen well off the 2022 post-devaluation lows described below — budget for a normal Asia trip, not a crisis-era discount one
Getting there	Fly into Bandaranaike International Airport (BIA), near Colombo/Negombo
Best time	December-April suits this exact coast-to-coast route best; the Cultural Triangle and hill country are workable most of the year, but the south coast (Galle, Mirissa) turns wet and rough May-September under the southwest monsoon

Days 1-2: Colombo, recalibrating

Colombo felt alive and somewhat frantic in the way that large South Asian cities always do, but the recent crisis had left visible marks. Several businesses on Galle Road were shuttered, the shutters painted with the marks of months-old political slogans. The Galle Face Green protests had ended months earlier, but the conversations about what had happened — and what came next — were everywhere.

The food at the Colombo restaurants I’d visited in 2018 and 2019 was unchanged: the crab curry at Ministry of Crab (book ahead, prices have risen) as precisely calibrated as ever; the hoppers at the small place in Wellawatte that doesn’t have a sign still the best I’d had anywhere. Whatever the crisis had done to the macro economy, it hadn’t dented the cooking — see our best restaurants in Colombo guide for a current list.

The exchange rate was a shock in the positive direction. The rupee had devalued so sharply that Sri Lanka in December 2022 was, for a visitor with euros or dollars, dramatically cheaper than it had been in 2019. A good meal that cost 2,500 LKR in 2019 might now cost 4,000 LKR but the dollar equivalent was lower, not higher. Our Sri Lanka currency and LKR money guide covers how the exchange rate and cash logistics have evolved since.

Days 3-4: The Cultural Triangle

The road north toward Sigiriya passes through Kurunegala — a town with a remarkable rock rising from its centre — and then through the dry-zone forests that characterise this part of the country. The driver I’d arranged through a recommendation had a functioning vehicle with a recently filled tank; fuel was available again, though at prices roughly three times the pre-crisis level.

Sigiriya in early December was not crowded. The high season for the Cultural Triangle peaks in January-March, and December sits in the early shoulder period. We were there at 6:30 a.m. and made the summit in relative quiet — perhaps fifty other visitors on the rock when we reached the top, compared to the hundreds that congregate at mid-morning in peak season.

The rock itself is unchanged by crises. The views from the summit — 360 degrees across the dry-zone jungle, the Habarana reservoir glinting to the northwest, the profile of Pidurangala visible to the north — are as they have been since the palace was built here in the 5th century. Whatever Sri Lanka’s contemporary politics, Sigiriya continues to be one of the most extraordinary human constructions on earth.

Sigiriya Lion Rock fortress entry e-ticket

The Pidurangala hike the next morning — the smaller rock north of Sigiriya, from which you look back at the lion rock itself — was quiet enough that we sat on the summit for forty minutes without another party arriving. The view of Sigiriya from this angle, the full rock profile with its forested skirts and the palace platform at the top, is the view that photography can’t quite capture.

Days 5-6: Kandy and the Temple of the Tooth

Kandy in December had the energy of a city that had been through something and was finding its pace again. The Dalada Maligawa — the Temple of the Tooth Relic — had its usual flow of pilgrims throughout the day; the religious calendar doesn’t pause for economic crises, and the offerings of flower petals and oil lamps continued as they have for centuries. Our Temple of the Tooth visitor guide covers dress code and the best times to visit outside the main puja hours.

What was different: the tourist shops and restaurants around the temple area were less aggressively touting. The usual pressure to enter a specific tea shop or gemstone dealer was lighter. A city under economic strain is, paradoxically, sometimes more relaxed in its commercial interactions — there is less energy for the performative enthusiasms of a high-confidence tourist economy.

The Kandy Lake, still the defining public space of the city centre, had its late afternoon walkers. The view across the lake to the cloud forest on the surrounding hills was unchanged. I ate at a rooftop restaurant with a valley view that was serving a rice-and-curry buffet of considerable excellence for 700 LKR — less than a third of what an equivalent meal would cost in a European city.

Days 7-8: The Hill Country train

The train from Kandy to Ella — see the full account of this journey — was running. December on this route means mist: the tea country at altitude in December is frequently wrapped in cloud that moves fast through the valley between passes. The Nine Arch Bridge emerged from the mist as if placed there for the specific purpose of being romantic about infrastructure.

Ella itself was busy by the standards of December 2022 — the famous coffee shops and viewpoint restaurants had returned visitors, the Ella Rock hike was operating. The town has a quality of having been discovered and now living with that discovery: it knows what it is, which gives it a certain settled confidence. The guesthouses were running at 70-80% occupancy by the owner’s report — not 2019 levels but genuinely viable.

Days 9-10: Yala

The jeep safari at Yala National Park in December 2022 had one quality that pre-crisis Yala in high season rarely offers: a leopard sighting with only four jeeps watching, rather than the thirty-plus that sometimes converge on a single cat in peak season. Whether this reflected reduced tourist numbers or fortune, the result was a twenty-minute observation of a female leopard with two cubs at a water hole, in what felt like genuine privacy.

Yala Block 5 private safari

Yala’s Block 1 — the most accessible and most visited section — was operating normally. The eco-lodges outside the park were mostly operational, though a few had remained closed since COVID and not yet reopened. The overall experience was among the best Yala safaris I had known: the wildlife was there, the guides were excellent, and the reduced density of vehicles made the park feel wilder.

Days 11-12: The south coast

Galle Fort — see our Galle Fort walking tour guide if you want a self-guided route through the ramparts, or a guided Galle Fort walking tour if you’d rather have a local historian fill in the context — in December 2022 was a version of itself that I had not quite seen before: normal. Not the pre-COVID tourist pressure, not the COVID emptiness, not the crisis strangeness — just the Fort being the Fort. The ramparts at sunset had their usual population of people watching the light change over the harbour. The Pedlar Street restaurants were serving. The boutiques were open.

What struck me was how little the Fort itself showed the economic crisis. The colonial architecture is too old and too solid to reflect contemporary economic conditions; the streets were clean; the restaurants were cooking. The Fort’s aesthetic is that of another century entirely, and in a particular way that insulates it from whatever century is currently having a bad time.

Mirissa was preparing for its whale-watching season. The boats in the harbour were being serviced. The beach had its usual December quality: sunny, surf moderate, the coconut palms doing what they do. Two restaurants were newly reopened after COVID closures, their signage fresh-painted. Our Mirissa whale watching complete guide covers what the season looks like now, well past the recovery period described here.

Day 13-14: Back through Colombo

The final two days in Colombo allowed for the comparison that had been forming across the whole trip. Sri Lanka in December 2022 was:

Cheaper for international visitors than at any point in recent memory, due to currency devaluation.
Quieter in tourist areas than at any point since 2014, due to the accumulated effect of COVID and crisis.
Functionally better — from a practical tourist perspective — than in July 2022, when fuel queues and power cuts were the daily context.
Warmer in its reception of visitors than perhaps any time I’d been, because the relief of having people coming was genuine.

The country was in transition. The political and economic situation was stabilising but not yet stable. The recovery was underway but uneven. The experiences on offer — Sigiriya, the train, Yala, Galle, the food everywhere — were unchanged in quality and unchanged in their capacity to constitute one of the best 14 days of travel available anywhere on earth.

Sri Lanka now, compared with that December

Looking back from today, the trajectory since this trip is worth spelling out plainly, because “in transition” was accurate in December 2022 but doesn’t describe the country as it is now. For a fuller current picture, see how tourism is helping Sri Lanka recover and why we still recommend Sri Lanka in 2026.

	December 2022 (this trip)	Today
Fuel and power	Recently resolved; queues were a fresh memory, not a daily reality	A non-issue; not something visitors need to plan around
Prices for visitors	Dramatically cheap due to the sharp rupee devaluation	Still good value by European standards, but the extreme 2022 discount has narrowed as the rupee and local prices have adjusted
Crowds at major sites	Noticeably thin — Sigiriya, Pidurangala, and Yala all felt uncrowded even in December	Back to something closer to pre-crisis density in peak months (January-March), though shoulder season is still comfortable
Traveller mood locally	Genuine relief and warmth at visitors returning, occasionally raw given how recent the crisis was	Confident and settled; the “thank you for coming back” moments of 2022 have mostly given way to normal, professional hospitality
What’s unchanged	Sigiriya, the Kandy-Ella train, Yala’s leopards, Galle Fort at sunset, and the food everywhere	Same — the fundamentals were never in question, only the surrounding economics

The honest read: if the 2022 version of this trip appealed to you for the empty sites and the currency discount, that specific combination is gone. If it appealed to you for the actual experiences, none of that has diminished.

Mistakes to avoid

Using 2022 prices to budget a trip today — the rupee and local prices have both moved since; check a current guide like Sri Lanka 2025: prices and visa instead of this account’s figures.
Expecting the empty-site conditions described here — thin crowds were a temporary feature of the 2022 recovery period, not a permanent one; January-March sites are busy again.
Assuming the whole country was equally affected by the 2022 crisis — the impact and the recovery were uneven by region; the Cultural Triangle and hill country barely paused while the south coast tourism economy took longer to recover.
Skipping the Nine Arch Bridge train because “it’ll be crowded” — it’s still worth doing; go at the early morning departure rather than midday to get closer to the quiet version described here.
Forgetting that the Kandy-Ella train needs advance booking today — in December 2022, seats were easier to find due to lower demand; that’s no longer the case, so book ahead.

FAQ

Is Sri Lanka still recovering from the 2022 crisis?

Not in any way that affects a visitor today. The practical problems described in this account — fuel queues, import shortages, the early stages of an uncertain recovery — were resolved years ago. What’s left is a normal, functioning tourism economy; the “transition” in this piece’s title describes a specific historical moment, not the country’s current state.

Does this route still make sense as a 14-day itinerary?

Yes, largely unchanged. Colombo, the Cultural Triangle (Sigiriya), Kandy, the hill country train to Ella, Yala, Galle, and Mirissa remain the core loop most first-time 14-day visitors follow, for the same reasons they did in 2022 — it’s simply the most efficient way to see the island’s major regions without excessive backtracking. See the 14-day Sri Lanka classic itinerary for a structured version with day-by-day timing.

Planning a similar 14-day route? See our 14-day Sri Lanka classic itinerary. For current conditions, read the 2026 honest forecast and Sri Lanka 2025: prices and visa.