Taxi from Colombo Airport to Hikkaduwa, fixed price private transfer

The E03 feeds into the E01 Southern Expressway, which runs uninterrupted to the Baddegama interchange. From there it is about fifteen kilometres west to the coast and into town on the A2. One hundred and twenty-five kilometres, two hours and a quarter, and almost no variation by time of day. Tolls are included in the quoted price. The A2 through Hikkaduwa itself is the slow part, and it is slow at any hour: the town has one road, and everything happens on it.

Two things shape this arrival. First, the railway runs between the road and the beach for the entire length of town, and the level crossings are the reason a two-kilometre stretch can take ten minutes. Second, and more useful to know: most sea-side properties are reached by turning across the oncoming traffic on the A2, then down a lane barely wider than the car. Several of the best-known guesthouses have no vehicle access at all for the last thirty metres. Tell us the property name rather than the beach and your driver will stop where the walk is shortest. North of town, at Telwatta, the A2 passes the memorial to the 2004 tsunami, where a train was carried off the line with more than a thousand people aboard. It is not a photo stop and we do not treat it as one, but drivers will point it out if you ask.

The road is flat and fast, so this decision is about what you are carrying rather than how the car rides. Surfboards are the specific question here, and Hikkaduwa is where they come up most: anything over about seven feet needs the comfort van with a row folded down, and it will not fit in a sedan whatever anyone tells you at the airport. Tell us the board length at booking. For two people with normal luggage the economy sedan is entirely adequate and the money is better spent elsewhere. Divers travelling with their own gear should count that as an extra suitcase when they choose.

This is the one route where we will happily talk you out of the car for part of your trip. Hikkaduwa station sits in the middle of town, the coastal line to Colombo Fort and south to Galle is slow, cheap and genuinely lovely, and for a day trip to Galle Fort it beats driving comfortably. What the train does not do is start at the airport, or carry two suitcases pleasantly. Take the transfer on arrival, when you are tired and loaded, then use the train for everything local afterwards. Expressway buses run to Galle and are quick, but they leave you fifteen kilometres short.

The drive is the same all year; the sea is not. From November to April the water is clear and calm enough that the coral sanctuary in front of the main beach is worth the snorkel, and turtles come in close to shore. From May to September the south-west monsoon puts a heavy swell on this coast, visibility collapses and the reef becomes unswimmable, though the surf schools carry on and the town empties pleasantly. Night arrivals reach Hikkaduwa in a little under two hours and attract a surcharge between 22:00 and 05:00. If you are arriving in daylight during the season, allow that the last two kilometres through town will be slower than the previous hundred.