It is now January 2026 and I am planning where to ride with an old fashioned paper map on the kitchen table.  Using this I find I can visualise the lie of the land much better than looking at a PC screen

SL seems to have 3 distinct cycling areas:

1. The Coast

2. The mountains.

3. Areas to avoid.

1. The Coast

Compared with the Indian Kokan coast (or the Devon coast) where the roads are frequently steep and river estuaries cut through higher land, the SL coastline appears to be much lower and flatter and is generally well provided with roads.  I have found just one place on the East coast where I may have to use a fishing boat to cross a river mouth to save a detour inland.  Following the coast should be straightforward…..apart from the ‘areas to avoid!’.

The coast will be warm.  Around 30C in the daytime and it should be dry.  So I expect an early start and early finish each day.

The Cyclone in November gave a lot of coastal flooding.  I know that hospitals North of Negombo were damaged and it is difficult to know the current situation. 

2. The mountains

At the South end of SL the land rises in the middle of the island to over 8000ft with high passes and steep gradients.  Towns and roads are at 6000ft AMSL with mountain passes.  It is tea country.  Cooler and wetter than the coast.  The recent cyclone turned the steep hillsides into mudslides and I am not sure what to expect.  Roads may be quiet or busy with lorries and buses as there are no alternative routes.  Villages may be empty.  Or hopefully life will be returning.

3. Areas to avoid.

I won’t be cycling through Colombo city.  If I have to route past it I will go along the coast or stay well inland and away from it’s urban sprawl.   But the main areas to avoid are the National Parks and Nature Reserves.  SL has 26 large National Parks.  The best well known is Yala in the South East.  Elephant, leopard and other game live there and there are few places to stay.  Not ideal if I get a puncture or get delayed and night falls …….  Perhaps more important, however, is that the National Parks are threatened by new roads.  Yala and Willpatu both extend to the coast.  Older roads and tracks run along the coast through the Parks and there is pressure to open those up.  In the Knuckles (not a National Park) the recent land slides have been used to justify new intrusive roadways.  I feel I am best riding around the edges of these areas as otherwise my journey only acts to justify the new roads and traffic that will destroy them.

My Route.

I will start at Negombo (on the West coast where the airport is) and I expect to ride North along the coast and then inland to Anuradhapurna to avoid the Willpatu National Park before heading back to the West coast and North to the Tamil city of Jaffna.   Jaffna was the base of the Tamil Tigers who in earlier days fought for independence and I expect it to have a different feel to other parts of SL which are Sinhalese in culture.

Then Southwards down the East coast to Trincomalee harbour and inland to the ancient city complex at Polonnaruwa.  I may then go back to the coast or head straight to the mountains in the middle of the island.  Lets see.  Apart from my first two nights in Negombo nothing is booked.

VISA PANIC

Yesterday I thought I would check my visa and flight dates.  I have a 30 day SL ETA visa (Electronic Travel Authorisation) that starts on entering the country.  It also means I do not need to fill in an Arrival Card at the airport.   But on checking my arrival and departure dates it looked like I was there for 32 days.   I looked into how I could extend my visa but I could not do it electronically as I am not yet in the country.  Changing flight dates would mean loosing my train tickets to Heathrow and no doubt a lot of airline costs.  If suitable flights were even available.  So it looked like a trip to downtown Columbo would be needed to pay some $ and get a 90 day visa for just 2 days.

Thankfully a little later in the day the penny dropped that February has 28 days not 31…..so all is OK.