Sri Lanka Activities

Wildlife, nature and fauna

Although Sri Lanka is small in land area it is very rich in wildlife and fauna. Some of the animals you will expect to see include elephants, sloth bears, wild boars, porcupines, otters, jackals, mongoose, and buffalo as well as five species of deer, 250 species of frogs, 90 types of snakes, 240 species of butterflies, and 12 types of monkeys. The abundance of bird life makes Sri Lanka an ornithologists paradise. Of the 427-recorded species, 250 are resident and 26 are endemic to the country.

Deep sea fishing

Sri Lanka's continental shelf, being abundant with sea plankton, attracts a wide variety of fish including game fish to the Sri Lankan coastal waters. These include blue marlin, sailfish, tuna, skipjack, spanish mackerel, sharks, spadefish, barracuda, beramundi and grouper.

Inland fishing

A large number of rivers and inland reservoirs (tanks) are known for indigenous fish and a few introduced different varieties for fishing. A popular variety is the mahseer found in the Mahaweli River, Kelani River, Kalu River, and Kummbukkan Oya while the Fresh Water Shark is found in the rivers and tanks such as Kalawewa, Nuwarawewa, Minneriya and Parakrama Samudra. The snakehead is also a widespread species of inland fish.

Ayurveda

Ayurveda is a system of holistic medicine that has been practised in Sri Lanka for the last 3,000 years using solely medicinal herbs and natural ingredients. Offering many benefits, it is a gateway to health, beauty and longevity through nature's benevolence and wisdom and through an inward balance of the bio-energies, where the interplay between mind, body and soul are given due attention. Most Ayurvedic therapies aim to achieve a perfect equilibrium of these energies without the harmful side effects and the painful procedures that one may encounter with many other treatments.

Ayurveda treatments can:

Rejuvenate your body and provide you with a new lease of energy
Invigorate your powers of resistance and immunity
Purify your systems by ridding your body of harmful toxins and pollutants that may have accumulated over the years
Enhance natural healing
Help combat chronic illnesses
In some instances, cure the terminally ill where other medicines have failed

Golf

Sri Lanka is relatively unknown in the field of golf, but surprisingly the country has three of the finest 18 hole courses in Asia. The three courses are situated in Colombo, at sea level; Victoria Golf Club near Kandy, at 600 metres; and Nuwara Eliya at 2070 metres, providing distinctly different terrain and climate conditions.

Scuba diving and snorkelling

Monsoons ensure that one half of Sri Lanka's coastal waters are always in season for all aquatic pursuits - the west coast from December to March and the north and east coasts from March to September, although July and October are best avoided. Visibility underwater in season is excellent and ranges from 50-100 feet. There are 138 species of brilliantly coloured coral recorded for Sri Lanka, harbouring stunning tropical fish and there is a wide coral shelf surrounding the island's coast at intervals, from north to south, providing excellent diving opportunities.