Originally Posted by motoreiter

That's all the good news. The bad news is that I was not that keen on Sri Lanka as a riding destination. I've ridden in many countries, including Russia, China, Laos, and Sri Lanka was the worst by far in terms of riding conditions. On any main road, the riding pretty much consisted of sucking up diesel fumes behind some bus or truck as you waited and waited for a break in oncoming traffic to allow a pass. Buses and just about everything else will also run you off the road in your lane without a second thought while they are passing (if you're lucky they will flash their highbeams to remind you to get out of the way). Am I exaggerating? Yeah probably, but most of the riding was not very pleasant.

That said, I did try to spend a lot of time on the back roads, some of which are incredibly beautiful and exotic (mountains, tea plantations, buddhist stuff, monkeys, etc.), but I was often frustrated by the lack of adequate signs (I got lost on a very regular basis) despite having a decent map. I couldn't believe the number of times that none of the 2-3 towns mentioned on the road signs were on my map.

Another good thing was that the people were in general very friendly and everywhere I went, even in the small villages, there was someone that spoke at least a little English (I didn't know what to expect in the countryside).