Taxi from Hikkaduwa to Colombo Airport, fixed price private transfer

The A2 north through town, then east to the Baddegama interchange, then the E01 and E03 to the terminal. One hundred and twenty-five kilometres, two hours and a quarter, tolls included. For a 01:30 flight the pickup lands around 19:45; for an early-morning departure at 08:00, around 02:15, which is genuinely the quicker and calmer of the two. Add fifteen minutes to any daytime pickup for the crawl through town.

The exit from Hikkaduwa is the whole story. The town has one road, the railway sits between it and the beach, and the level crossings stop everything for several minutes at a time. Sea-side properties are entered directly off the A2, which means your driver turns across oncoming traffic to reach you and again to leave, and at the end of the day that is slower than it sounds. Several guesthouses have no vehicle access for the last thirty metres. Board bags come out through the same lanes. None of this is difficult, but it is why we plan fifteen minutes for a stretch a map calls two kilometres.

Boards decide this, as they did on the way in. Anything over seven feet needs the comfort van with a row folded flat, and a board bag that came down in a van will not go home in a sedan whatever the arrivals hall told you on the first day. Book the same vehicle for the return and the question does not arise. Divers travelling with their own gear should count it as an extra case. Without boards, two people and their luggage are perfectly served by the economy sedan on a road this smooth.

Hikkaduwa station is in the middle of town and the coastal line to Colombo Fort is slow, cheap and beautiful; for anything other than a flight we would recommend it warmly. Against a boarding time it has the familiar flaw of ending thirty-five kilometres short, and the last connection has to be solved at Fort, at whatever hour you arrive, with your luggage. Expressway buses from Galle are quick and leave you with the same problem. For a departure, the point of the car is that there is nothing to solve at the other end.

The expressway is indifferent to the hour; the town is not. Leaving between 08:00 and 10:00 or around 17:00 costs an extra fifteen minutes getting clear of Hikkaduwa. Night departures are the fastest of all and attract a surcharge between 22:00 and 05:00. The seasons matter less for the drive than for what precedes it: from May to September the south-west monsoon can put heavy rain on the expressway, which occasionally slows traffic to sixty for short stretches, and twenty minutes of margin covers it. In the December to April high season the town itself is busier and the exit slower.