Sinharaja Forest Reserve Hike from Mirissa

Great experience, guide was knowledgeable and experienced and showed us a lot of animals

The scenery on the drive and within the rainforest itself are absolutely stunning!!! Also a nice waterfall at the end of the trek. Only thing I would recommend to be careful with is wear closed toed shoes (with socks). Otherwise the leeches in the park can be really bad and will suck your blood.

Really nice guide. Had seen a lot of animal!! Lizards, spiders, snakes, monkeys, birds, squirrels, etc. The store keeper at the tea station was really kind too☺️ He made a coconut into mouse shape😍

Overall, it was pretty good. The leader introduced us to the animals we saw and helped us carry water and food. The unforgettable thing was getting bitten by a leech - "lucky day"!

Great experience to walk through the Forest. everything was well prepared incl. Transfer! The Ranger was very friendly and went with open eyes through the Forest. We discovered a lot of animals and plants. Enjoyable. You should be a bit trained in doing a longer walk.

Sinharaja is a real paradise, with water falls, clean and relatively cool freshwater and a lot of hidddn wildlife. My hiking guide (Sam) showed me this great place, which also is the backyard of his home, and he explained a lot of interesting aspects and showed me much of the hidden wildlife (mostly reptiles) in this jungle. Especially I enjoyed, that I finally did a real hike on remote trails, a much more direct way to sense the Sri Lankan Nature compared to safaris. Also transport was well organized and I did not have to wait anywhere at all. I highly recommend this trip to add some adventure to your stay in Mirissa. For me it was my first visit to a tropical rainforest and I am really impressed!

An alright experience for several reasons. Pros: - Pick up from our accommodation in Mirissa was seamless and the drive was smooth - Guide was good at spotting even the tiniest animals so we managed to see a couple of snakes, millipedes, different spiders, a chameleon and a giant squirrel. - food was delicious and huge portions, we ate at our guide’s home which was very homely and accommodating. Cons - Our guide didn’t speak very good English which was a great shame as conversations was quite hard and it prevented us from asking loads of questions. He probably had loads of knowledge about the flora and fauna but couldn’t communicate it properly and clearly. - The whole day tour did not last 12 hours as advertised. The drive was two hours each way, and we were back in Mirissa at 4.30 instead of the advertised 6pm so we only spent about 3.5-4 hours in the forest and the rest was having breakfast and lunch. - We were told the day before via whatsapp that socks will be provided and we wouldn’t need to bring any. This was not the case, we merely got some salt put on our shoes to supposedly prevent the leeches but one of us still ended up being bitten. If we were told to bring our own high socks that wouldn’t have been an issue at all but alas. - Description said a hot beverage will be provided on the way back which was also not the case. All in all, I’d recommend some communication improvements to make this a more enjoyable and educative experience. I assume that the majority of the money paid goes towards the transport, but it’s still quite a lot for a rather average experience.