Batticaloa Travel Forum

what are the best things in batticaloa?

Hi,
according to the UK's Exterior Service, the best thing would be to avoid Batticaloa at all due to security reasons"
"# We advise against all travel to the north and east of Sri Lanka, and to Yala National Park and the areas around it.

# For the purpose of this travel advice we consider the north to be all areas north of the A12 road (which runs from Puttalam in the west to Trincomalee in the east) including the Jaffna peninsula. We consider the east to be the districts of Trincomalee and Batticaloa, as well as coastal areas of Ampara district east of the A25 and A27 roads ."

see full info at
http://tinyurl.com/3uc6mn

Good Luck !

Poor old Batti has had it hard and it shows but that makes it strangely attractive. I don’t know the town well, we stopped for lunch in August after a far too short visit to wonderful Passikuda Beach. We had a quick look round and moved on but I am looking forward to going back, hopefully later this year and I would like to stay a little longer. For me foreign travel is about seeing different places and experiencing different cultures and maybe because of it’s problems the east is still different.

I like this part of the world. Okay, it’s been battered by bombs, bullets and a tsunami, it gets heavy at times and travelling around can be difficult because of bad roads and numerous check points. Very little of the wealth which has trickled down the west coast and settled in the south in recent years appears to have found its way over here and it could do with some investment in the infrastructure but apart from the neglect and the fighting (which rarely affects a foreigner unless we do something stupid) in a strange way this side of the island is pretty much unspoiled.

Warnings against travel to this part of the island keeps a lot of people away so tourists are rare and when local people get over the intial shock of meeing a suddha who is just an ordinary tourist (and not an NGO) they seem genuinely happy to see you.

I love the east coast terrain, it’s exciting, Batti feels like an island to me, with its causeways and bridges. The army are everywhere but like the local people even the army seemed glad to see us once they realised we were simply travellers. Bored kids with rifles, stuck behind barbed wire, missing their villages and girlfriends, they were happy to talk to anyone from outside and honestly grateful for the cigarettes, sweets and magazines we were carrying.

I wanted to go back in January and spend some time in Batti before heading down to Ampara for New Year but things kicked off so we went west of the Hill Country and in from the Monaragala side instead, which was a mistake because the trouble was heading south.

So, what are the best things in batticaloa? Travelling in this area is still exciting and different, it’s surrounded by beautiful beaches, the sun rise can take your breath away and visitors are so welcome that even the fish sing at you!

But maybe best of all, I like Batti because it doesn’t have a McDonalds (yet!).

Hi Mark,

thanks for the wonderful and very true statement !
I'm also a Sri Lanka addict like you and agree completely to everything you say;
as a (unfortunately) very seasoned traveller (my first trip to SL was in '78) I just didn't want to leave those safety-aspects unmentioned!
Good Luck!

You are quite correct, if you hadn't mentioned the security aspects I would have done. It's exciting travelling in the east but there is a real risk, I wouldn't bring my kids here.

Nothing special these days excluding Provincial Council Election and the fighting between Tamil Terrorists vs Tamil Terrorists.

WTF?