Kimkim Trip Reviews for Sri Lanka

My wife Anthea and I had never been to Sri Lanka previously so we had no real understanding of the country or people and really no expectations for the trip other than what we had heard from others.

However we have come away from our trip absolutely stunned, amazed and thoroughly satisfied, it is the most beautiful country and warm and friendly people and we have bought away memories that will stay with us for our life time.

We can not fault the engagement and support we have had from our liaison Sandun, he was prompt, listened carefully to what we were after, was always helpful with the questions we had and overall built for us a truly amazing itinerary!

Arriving in a new country for the first time is always daunting and full of concern however we were incredibly lucky to be met by Mr Dammika Bandara who we learnt was to be our guide for the trip. He quickly became a long life friend (!!!!!).....and look after us through the chaos of the Easter Sunday bombings, through driving us always safely across many miles or country side and busy roads, through always taking time to point out things of interest and having us visit places we didnt know existed, through sharing meals of friendship and finally a warm goodbye and promise we would be back and the opportunity to meet his lovely son!

We thank Dammika's family for sharing him with us for our two week journey and we hope one day we will get to meet them in person :)

There were many highlight places for us but none more so than Wild Grass Resort, Sigriya Rock, Yala National Park and Galle and Thropoban Pavilion Resort. Dammika and I conquered the Little Adams Peak trek!!! and Anthea and I adored our special dinner night at Mahoora Luxury Safari Park. We were incredibly lucky to view both elephants and leopards in the park and we loved our afternoon at the Galle Fort a Sugar Bar and Bistro.

We are absolutely going back again and exploring the north of the island!

Yasantha did a great job and managed to tailor an amazing trip based on "Trails of an Ancient Kingdom" that perfectly fitted our desires. We decided to extend the 10-day programme, and modifying the itinerary, adding extra days of hiking, planning accommodation and connecting us with local trekkers and guides was always done instantly. Communication before our trip was excellent and ran very smoothly, all the questions that we had were answered which gave us the impression to be taken care of in a very personal way that you usually can't expect while using a booking platform. In the country itself we got in contact with awesome local guides, all the staff of Eco Team Sri Lanka works in an outstanding way, well trained, so kind and helpful and with a stunning experience and awareness of the nature (Knuckles Manigala trekking, Eshan and his team for the Belihuloya trek through the jungle, Adam's Peak and Russell and all the people at the Udawalawe Big Game Camp). Thanks to our driver Sanjaya who took us safely to all the exceptional places that this country has to offer.

A wonderful holiday, made better by our local guide and driver, Dammika.
Very saddened to hear about the bombings.

Had an amazing trip to Sri Lanka with a group of friends in March/April 2019. The Blue Whale watching in Marrissa was a highlight (for me) as was the safari tour where we came very close to elephants and all sorts of wildlife. Travelling on the roads in Sri Lanka is not for the faint hearted - our driver Anoj was excellent and we felt safe and comfortable at all times. Distances can be deceiving - one day travelling a few hundred kilometres took us over 6 hours - which was exhausting - some roads are narrow and congested with traffic of all sorts (including domestic cows wandering about). Our accommodations (suggested by Kimkim) were all excellent choices - we especially loved the riverside tent camp. A useful tip for people using this service is to check beforehand or specify if you wish your accommodations to be near multiple options for your evening meal, quite often we found ourselves with only the option of eating at the hotel where we were staying - which were all excellent, we had amazing food and was all very reasonably priced. Also due to the time travelling to each destination meant that we often went without lunch, which wasn't really an issue as the breakfasts included in each hotel were plentiful and always included a hot meal option. Meeting local villagers and experiencing a traditional meal cooked over an open fire and eating it with our hand was another highlight - we drank bottled water the whole time but had no problem with bad tummies - the high quality of the hygiene practices of all the food places was a relief. The booking experience with Shalindra for me was excellent - he was quick to respond to all of my changes and requests for information - he called during the trip to ensure all was going well - which was appreciated. I requested an early change to add the whale watching to the itinerary, which I expected the accommodation would also change to suit, however it did not, we ended up travelling 2 hours one way to our hotel to only then have to get up really early the following morning to backtrack 1 1/2 hours to get back to where we had travelled from he night before. I guess I should have checked this at the time I made the change (however I expected this sort of detail to be considered and sorted before the final bookings were locked in). Overall it was still an exceptional service and company to have done this trip with. A really special shout out to Anoj our driver who was amazing throughout the whole trip, from the very start when my luggage did not appear at the airport (stressful) he spoke to the locals and sorted everything out, to the very flexible and friendly manner with which he conducted our tour and supported us through everything right down to accompanying us into small local shops to ensure we had no trouble communicating what we needed. Thank you team! I would highly recommend KimKim, Shalindra and Anoj to everyone and anyone!

We've just returned from a 9 day trip of Sri Lanka.

We had an amazing time. It was very straightforward to organise our trip online. We were connected with Sadun from Experiential Journeys and he provided great service. Updating and amending our itinerary so we could fine tune it was also easy.

When we arrived we were met by Dammika at the airport. He handled our trip seamlessly. He was a great driver, in the crazy Sri Lankan traffic. He was also very knowledgeable about all things Sri Lankan. He also arranged a surprise birthday cake and present!

Our highlights would be the train trip from Kandy to Nuwara Eliya, the amazing scenery and a visit to a tea plantation. Udawalawe would have to be a standout. We saw so much wildlife - peacocks, water buffalo, crocodiles, lizardss, birds and 6 elephants! The coast was stunning and relaxing. Then there was the people, day to day wildlife spotting and a turtle sanctuary too.

The hotels were all great, only one was a little out of the way. As it was towards the end of the tourist season we often had the run of hotels. Our favourites were Seasons Villa, glamping in Udawalawe, Joes Resort and the Galle Face Hotel.

Although I made it clear when booking the trip that we had 5 people we had to explain and wait extra because they needed to arrange an extra bed. The extra cost wasn't the issue it was that we had to explain and go through the same process at each hotel. Our driver Dhanuka was amazing,safe and adjusted our trip to our needs and requests. The van was new, very comfortable. I feel I could of planned a trip myself for a lower cost but it was nice to have everything taken care of. Overall it was a great trip. We love sri lanka and will definitely be back.

Damayantha was a fantastic guide. After he picked us up from the airport and on our way to our first lodging he stopped and had us experience king coconut juice from the coconut. He also pointed out things of interest along the way. He is a superb driver and we were extremely comfortable with his driving during our long transitions between places we were staying. When he was called away with a death in his family and we had a new guide/driver, we appreciated his driving even more. Dama made our trip most enjoyable by his interaction with us, showing us points of interest, accommodating our minor schedule changes and making sure everything we needed was taken care of. All of the hotels were fine and a few were really fine like Cinnamon Kandy, JetWing and Centauriawild. The Thaproban Waves Hotel was gorgeous but my wife scheduled a massage through the hotel and was inappropriately touched by the masseuse and it was absolutely intentional. The hotel management seemed to believe the masseuse's story rather than what my wife had to say. Of particular interest was the glamping (glamorous camping) at Mahoora Premium. They are very ecologically conscious and make every effort to leave a small or no carbon footprint. On our jeep safari at Mahoora were were fortunate to see two leopards and two sloth bears. We were very lucky indeed to see both of these animals. Sigiriya was most memorable as was Udawalawe National Park. All in all a great trip.

Our experience was great. Osi was very organized and friendly, conversed well. Itinerary was good, glad we went to Nuwara Eliya and not Hepatale. Would have been a very long drive to there from Kandy. Not sure if the drive up to Liptons Seat was worth the very long drive.

Except for the painfully long wagon ride Hiriwadunna was surprisingly good for such a touristed place.
We loved all the safaris. They all had their own charm. Watching the over 70 elephants come in for a drink at Minneriya National Park was special. Whenever we mentioned that we watched birds the safari drivers seemed enthused to do more, taking us to quiet spots. We saw over 120 species overall.
Our accommodation in Kandy and Newara Eliya was well out of town. They were excellent but made us completely dependent on our driver, not being able to go for a stroll when we wished.
Lovely country, lovely people, thanks so much, will probably return one day

The trip was fantastic!

My only suggestion is that there is more communication between the tour organizer and the driver before the trip takes place. Sanjaya made a few amendments along the way, one being changing our train journey which meant we did not have pre-booked seats and had to stand the entire way! It was quite uncomfortable and not as enjoyable as it could have been. The drivers are the ones on the ground and know how things work so their knowledge needs to be taken into account.

My boyfriend and I had a fantastic trip in Sri Lanka. We did a nine-day tour, and Shalindra patiently worked with us to create the itinerary and answered all of our questions. Our driver/guide, Kapila, was very knowledgeable and accommodating whenever we wanted to change up the itinerary a bit. He also gave us suggestions and brought us to some local roadside stands for snacks like coconut roti and hoppers. Our hotels were fantastic and the breakfasts were really great, especially the Colombo Court Hotel & Spa in Colombo. My favorite spots/excursions were Ravana Falls in Ella, the elephant safari near Dambulla, and the whitewater rafting in Kitulgala.

My two small "negatives" are 1) I wish we'd gotten to spend more time in a few places, like Kandy and Nuwara Eliya, but now I know for any possible future trips to SL and 2) the spice garden is a bit more of a touristy shopping trap, so I'd probably skip that in the future, but we did also get nice mini-massages there.

All in all, I'd highly recommend Shalindra/Kapila/Exemplary Voyages!

Kuchara is the name of our tour guide.
3/15/2019 is the date of our cruise. When Perez Group arrived at the cruise port Princess have a bus that took us outside the port to meet our guide. Kuchara was not there and we are so worried because there are so many guides who is asking if you needed a tour. I have to call Sandun to locate our guide. My goodness, he was sitting in the bus and we did not see our name because the sign is just lying on the dashboard not posted on dashboard window. And as a guide, Kuchara should be waiting & standing for us holding the sign like the Viator and ToursByLocals guides we saw at the port.

I would like to suggest, your guide should at least provide bottled water to the tourist. It was already hot and humid although its only 9:00 am. All our guides;: Singapore, India, Sri Lanka, and Dubai gave us bottled water and it makes a big difference. Our guides also have cameras and took us pictures and email them to us after our tours. We felt special and connected with our guides.

The most memorable part of our tour is the lunch. Kuchara took us to a Chinese Restaurant while we were in Sri Lanka because we don't eat spicy food. The food was great, location and service were excellent.

All the best!

We had a wonderful, nearly two week, experience traveling around Sri Lanka with the help of KimKim and Sandun. The star-ratings would have easily been fives except for the following:
1. While tour operators have to rely on the competency of the guides assigned to clients, the initial guide assigned to us was clearly unacceptable due to his lack of timeliness, his inadequate preparation and organization, and his lack of honesty. To the credit of Sandun, once we brought our concerns to his attention, he immediately changed our guide. Our new guide, Denver, was one of the best guides we have ever had -- anywhere -- and we have traveled throughout the world. As a result of the inadequacy of the first guide we were, disappointingly, unable to enjoy all of the sights in Anuradhapura.
2. A suggestion for future, similar tours. We enjoyed the train ride from Kandy to Hatton, but suggest that the ride be from Kandy to Nuwara Eliya. From Hatton we were driven to our extraordinary accommodations at Tea Trails. But, in order to see the sights in Nuwara Eliya we would have been required to drive 2-3 hours (each way) the next day from Tea Trails (our only full day at Tea Trails) to Nuwara Eliya. Had we taken the train from Kandy, through Hatton, to Nuwara Eliya we might have been able to see the sights in Nuwara Eliya following the train ride, and on our way to Tea Trails, and then spend the full next day at Tea Trails without missing sights in Nuwara Eliya.

Overall, the itinerary was well planned and the lodgings were excellent. And our guide, Denver, as explained earlier, was the best ever. He has a patient temperament; is well-organized; has excellent driving skills; is friendly, humorous, and full of wonderful stories. And Denver is fully knowledgeable and an able teacher. We thank Denver, and Sandun, for making this trip such a worthwhile and, overall, enjoyable experience.

Tour guide Thasim is mostly a driver. He just did small part of a guide's job, such as set the morning meeting time.
I have to complaint that so many days we had late lunch,almost 80% of our lunch were between 1:30 pm to 2:30 pm. Then we were driven back to hotel after lunch & didn't hear anything from him after that. Kimkim booked many hotels out of convenient locations. Some were so far in & remote. There was no way for us to find a dinner place in walking distance. We didn't want to eat in hot & humid condition after a shower. We didn't want to take Tuk tuk all the time either. There are 4 nights I stay separately with Tams, so I don't even want to go out myself. We all skipped dinner at least for 5 nights. I feel Thasim could have offered some help to arrange our dinners, even dinners are not included in our cost. We all felt that Thasim tried to put all activities together by delaying our lunch, even when we told him we were hungry & the place we passed looked like a good lunch place. He would ignore our request, insisted a reason to do more activities all together. Then he would say Bye to us & won't see us again until next morning.
I'm very disappointed about Colombo's hotel location. We had plenty of time to do some shopping on our last day. But the location of our last night hotel was so far from the town center. Even it was close to the beach, but it's close to the railroad & not that pretty to see. There were no shops or even good restaurants for us to enjoy our last day. As usual, we got no help or recommendations from Thasim. Every time when I contacted you for detail information, such as about what were included in the city tour, he got offended & not happy. He felt that I reported him for not doing his job. But, I just tried to know because it was not listed in detail in your handout. He did miss to let us go inside the Temple of Tooth & just let us walk around it briefly.
With this kind of trip with many remote & jungle stay, I felt the dinner should be included for our convenience, even we have to pay for it. Also, please give us a good map for our itineraries.
Thanks. Chyong

We have good support from Colombo office.
Our driver/tour guide is good in handling the busy traffic during our trip.
We have encountered one problem with accommodation being not available when we arrived at site. We ended up staying in another facility quite far away.
Local guides are satisfactory.
Unfortunately our tour guide does not have license to show us around - especially in big cities. So we did not have a more complete travel experience in those cases.
Overall we are happy with our itinerary and we are safe on our whole trip.

overall a great experience, we chose the hotels.
It would have been good to know about "Tipping", as far as I know , we were not told that the tipping was expected each day and tipping the driver , who was excellent.
I did email during the trip asking about the tipping system which was explained
My only negative criticism would be the camping night, room was below average , shower did not work and dinner unfortunately was below average, but besides all that we had a great time and a great experience.

We thoroughly enjoyed our trip to Sri Lanka. We were very happy with our accommodation, with the exception of Athgira River Camp. Breakfast was included each day, and were all very good. The days we were leaving early to go on a safari, we were provided with a packed breakfast to take with us. The staff at all of these places were very helpful and friendly.
Our driver La La did a great job. His knowledge of the places we visited, as well as the politics and history of Sri Lanka made our journey much more enjoyable than if we had not had this information available to us. He was a very good and safe driver.

The itinerary was well planned and managed to see a lot in a short space of time. Hotels were a bit hit and miss though. Some were excellent and others were below average. My guide Karpila was knowledgeable and a professional driver. The most memorable places were Anuradhapura, Polonaruwa, Sigiriya and Minneriya National Park.

My husband and I did the cultural tour with Grasshopper Advenures and it was absolutely spectacular!!! We did this as part of our honeymoon and we couldn’t have wanted anything better! Nishan our guide was fabulous, and our driver Sidit was always there if we needed him! The accomodation on the tour was out of this world - every night was different and showcased a different cultural side to Sri Lanka. This tour took us all over Sri Lanka from the beaches up into the moutains, riding on backroads and through little villages meeting the locals. We would recommend this tour to anyone who loves advenure, culture, exercise and good food.

Ash, our guide, was amazing. He was a great driver on challenging Sri Lanka roads. Ash is also very knowledgeable and infinitely great company. We loved every minute with him.

Planning with Shalindra was very easy too. We had just one misunderstanding re our need for a guide and driver. We ended up paying for both but only getting (and needing) Ash who was well qualified to both drive and guide. We did get a $100 credit, but that type of confusion at the beginning of a vacation far from home is a bit concerning.

Overall a wonderful trip!!

Our experiences in Sri Lanka were amazing ! Prior to the trip Sandun helped us put together an itinerary that suited our interests and needs. He always replied promptly and courteously and even rang during the trip to check all was going well.
Our Guide , Sath Kumara was outstanding throughout our 20 day trip. He was professional, knowledgeable and had a great sense of humour. It was like travelling with a friend. Nothing was ever too much trouble and he presented the car each morning washed and spotless.
Every day of our holiday brought new and awesome experiences but some of the highlights included climbing Sigiriya's Lion Rock to see the remains of an ancient palace and soak in unbelievable views; getting up close and personal with elephants and other wild life at Udawalawe and Yala National Parks; watching fishermen haul in their night's catch on the beach at Mirissa; walking through fish and vegetable markets with the locals; Jaffna, Delft Island and Point Pedro; visiting Danbulla's Cave Temple and witnessing history going back to 1st century BC; riding on the scenic train from Kandy to Ella through the tea plantations, vegetable gardens and high mountains. The list could go on. Sri Lanka is so diverse and to date unspoilt. Kumara and Sandun you made it the BEST holiday. Thank you.