Journeys · Sri Lanka

Sri Lanka by Bicycle: Highlands & Cultural Trails

Five days, about 155 kilometres, and almost none of it on a main road. You ride farm bunds and laterite lanes between the two great rocks of the cultural triangle, then climb the old…

Length: 5 days, 4 nights
From: ₹1,32,000 per person
Pace: Active
Stops: 6
Best months: January to April, August

The route

6 stops over 5 days

Dambulla
Sigiriya
Madatugama
Matale
Kandy
Hanthana

Village lanes and paddy bunds, almost no traffic all week
Dambulla’s five painted caves before the first coach arrives
Curd and kithul treacle at a stall near Habarana
The old Matale road climbing past Nalanda Gedige
Eighteen kilometres of Hanthana tea road at first light

Day by day

What actually happens

Length: 5 days
Stops: 6
Pace: Active
From: ₹1,32,000

1D

Dambulla

Arrival and the First Spin

Land at Colombo, meet your guide and drive four hours north to Dambulla; the support vehicle and bikes are already there. Fittings before tea, saddle height, cleats, tyre pressure for gravel. Then an easy twelve kilometres around the Kandalama tank at the hour when cormorants come in to roost and the water goes the colour of hot metal.

Night: Amaya Lake, Dambulla
2B L D

Sigiriya

Cave Temple to Sigiriya

Thirty kilometres on farm tracks and bunds, starting with the five caves at Dambulla before the coaches. The riding is flat and shaded, past chena plots of chilli and okra, with a stop for curd and kithul treacle at a roadside stall. Climb Pidurangala at four for the view back at Sigiriya’s rock, then coast down for a swim.

Night: Jetwing Vil Uyana, Sigiriya
3B L

Madatugama

Sigiriya Rock, then South to Madatugama

On the rock at seven for the frescoes and the lion’s paws, down by half nine. Forty-five kilometres after that, mostly on red laterite lanes through Hiriwadunna: village kitchens, an ox cart crossing, a lake you paddle in a log catamaran. Lunch is rice and five curries eaten off a lotus leaf. The afternoon is short and downhill.

Night: Kalundewa Retreat, Madatugama
4B L

Kandy

Nalanda Gedige and the Road to Kandy

The best riding of the week: fifty kilometres south on the old Matale road, climbing gently past the eighth-century Nalanda Gedige, a stone shrine that borrows from both Hindu and Buddhist plans. Spice gardens, then a van lift through the Kandy traffic. Evening puja at the Temple of the Sacred Tooth Relic, drums at half six, shoulders covered.

Night: The Radh, Kandy
5B

Hanthana

Hanthana Tea Trails, then Departure

A last ride at six, up into the Hanthana range behind Kandy: eighteen kilometres of tea road with the whole valley under mist and pluckers already at work on the upper fields. Breakfast at a bungalow with the good Ceylon orange pekoe. Shower, then three and a half hours down the expressway to the airport for your flight home.

Night: Departure day, no overnight