Hayleys Travels (Pvt) Ltd in Colombo 10

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comments 5

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  sanduni pamuditha

  :: 28 March 2018 22:57:02

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  Amith Sriram

  :: 14 February 2018 07:23:41

  Never ever opt for this tour agency. They arranged a guide named Shantha (or something like that) and a mini coach with a driver. That's all they did for the 4 day tour. The guide spoke poorly in English and took us to places where he got commission. We barely visited any place in Sri Lanka and most of the time was spent either on transiting between Colombo and Kandy, or in our hotel room with nothing to do. On the last day, our frustration forced us to ditch this guide and his coach, and visit a few places on our own. The whole tour was poorly planned with little or no time alloted for the vast Royal Botanical Garden at Peradeniya, Kandy. We also spent several half-days in the coach and in hotel rooms while we should have been out sightseeing. Upon arrival at Colombo airport at noon, we were made to sit hungrily for 3 hours en-route to Pinnawala, where lunch was arranged. Other than been shown a herd of elephants being bathed in the river below, there was no activity. We embarked on another 2 hour drive to Peradeniya and reached the Royal Botanical Garden at 5.30pm, an hour before closing time. The orchid garden was already closed and we ran around getting to see about a small fraction of the park, before being informed of closing time by the staff there. The next day, we spent about 45 minutes at the tooth relic temple and about 7 hours on the coach traveling back to Colombo! We weren't shown anything else at Kandy, including the lake view. However, the guide made sure that we visited a tea factory and a herbal garden, both of which sell products at exorbitant prices to tourists. The herbal garden sells snake oils (purported medicines that quacks sell), making tall claims about curative effects of their medicines. These are not medicines and don't cure anything. The salesman even made a tall claim that the government has banned modern medicines for diabetes, that no medical shops sell insulin, and that only a herbal medicine that they prepare is being given to Lankans who have diabetes - which is a BIG LIE. I wonder how quacks and con men can operate with such impunity. Several tourists are conned into buying useless "medicines" at highly exorbitant prices. Our Hayleys guide confessed that he gets commission for bringing tourists there. We were made to pay for getting him commission. The whole tour was a horrible experience with us gaining nothing but losing money and three whole days draining out everything we had. Hayleys makes sure that you gain nothing for what you pay and they gain every time you buy something from these shops. At Colombo, we had more such experience when he took us, yet again, to a "Gems Museum", which is no museum but a jeweler's. Having been conned, we then begged the guide to take us for some street shopping. He took us to a useless place so that we'd never complain again. We had to press him to stop at the beautiful Marine Drive, which was not included in the "Colombo City Tour". Our pleas to take us to Gangaramaya and Seema Malaka weren't heeded to. In fact, this so called city tour is a sham. You are taken in a coach and shown some buildings. There are no halts. We broke the tour half way through and went on our own to Gangaramaya temple, the park and Seema Malaka - places which no one visiting Colombo would skip. I'm surprised that even with two days at Colombo, all Hayleys had to offer was a ride around a part of the city in an air conditioned coach.

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  Arjuna Sandaruwan

  :: 07 February 2018 21:56:08

  Good service

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  Rowan Thurai

  :: 04 January 2018 22:23:26

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  Anuruddha Ariyarathne

  :: 12 November 2017 10:01:57

  Good