Southern Sri Lanka Sightseeing Private Day Trip

Godfrey escorted me and my husband around Negombo. He went over and above regular service. He took us to a speciality supermarket for herbal medicine and also to the market to look for curry leaves. His knowledge and information shared was terrific. Well done Godfrey. We hope to meet again. Thank you for taking us safely back to the airport. Annie and Craig Loftus Scotland.

Imran was an absolutely amazing tour guide. Took us to all the right places and provided lots of information about the locations and sites we were visiting. The vehicle was large, clean, and had air conditioning. I recommend this tour!

My friends and I booked the Southern Sri Lanka Sightseeing Private Day Trip on October 8, 2019 Operated by Beyond Escapes via Tripadvisor. We were picked up on time but there was no English speaking tour guide like it was advertised on the website. We were really disappointed when we realized the driver was the so-called tour guide. He was busy driving, so he did not have to provide any information to us and we didn’t feel safe and comfortable to ask the driver any questions while he was driving. Then we placated ourselves that when we reached the destinations the driver would tell us more about Sri Lanka. But it turned out our driver was not knowledgeable or proactive; often times we as tourists had to take initiative to ask questions like “ is there anything about this place that we should know about?” he then only told us very basic information. The driver also didn’t manage our time very well; instead of driving us to the lunch place on time, (we were really hungry) but he still dropped us off at his favorite Gemstone place (not mentioned in the tour itinerary) hoping we would buy something there. We then had no option but to skip the Mask museum which was actually on the itinerary! We stopped at the so-called “popular local restaurant” for lunch. Except for the nice breeze and Madu river view, this place was not a restaurant at all. The place was under construction and the toilet smelled. We paid 270$ for three of us to go on this tour thinking we would have a great lunch experience but our lunch sadly was just a plate of cold fried rice, cold fried fish and some french fries and some salad. One of us ordered a coke; it was not even cold; we asked for some ice; they said they didn’t have any ice. By the way, the drinks were not included in the tour fee. Plus, the driver jumped straight into the food without any proper introduction or presentation about what type of food we were about to have. Another let down. After lunch we boarded the speed boat to cruise around the Madu river, the boat trip was okay, we stopped at the place where we learned how Cinnamon oil and Cinnamon power are made, but everyone greeted us as if we were Chinese. We are not Chinese, so please don’t assume every Asian is Chinese and say “Ni-hao”! If you know exactly where people are from, feel free to greet them in their language; otherwise it will just annoy people. To sum it up, though we saw some nice sites, we spent most of our time driving and learned very little. We were sold an English speaking tour guide, but in the end received an expensive driver.