Verken Bentota Village: begeleide tuktuksafari

Fantastic evening tuk tuk tour with our guide Shiran. Having spent the last 10 days touring Sri Lanka, it was so good to get off the beaten track and do something a bit different. We saw coconut hides being made into rope, rubber resin being extracted from trees and cinnamon bark being produced..all by local villagers. Finally we got to release turtles I to the sea. Amazing. So glad we did it.

Shiran our guide was simply the best he took us on a 3 hour tour of Bentota and we saw life as it really is. We saw rope made from the coconut shells, the rubber tree cut for the milk, cinnamon being stripped for drying,,so many different fruits growing - bananas mango papaya jack fruit star fruit pineapples and tasted peppercorn straight from the tree. We saw the tea plantation and the rice fields. Shiran took us to a really old temple and it really was beautiful, better than others we visited. The whole tour taught us so much, no factories or shops just real life living which was exactly what we wanted to see.

Fantastic tour, we saw so much of the local life and industry. Our host Shiran and his colleague picked us up in tuktuks directly from our hotel and we spent the afternoon visiting a coconut factory, an amazing temple where we met the monk and saw vine documents dating back 600 years. Then on to see the rubber harvesting process and a cinnamon farm, passing paddy fields and water buffalo on the way. All the while Shiran kept up a running commentary of where we were, interesting local facts and history, stopping by the side of the road occasionally to pick peppercorns and fresh Aloe Vera for my sons sunburnt shoulders. Finally we went to the Turtle sanctuary and released baby turtles into the sea, absolutely amazing and a highlight of our trip. Shiran is a lovely man and gracious host, his love of his country and hospitality shines out of him. Cannot recommend this tour highly enough. Thank you so much for the experience.