New Year in Sri Lanka - celebrations on the beach

What is it like to celebrate New Year in Sri Lanka? We headed down to the coast to celebrate New Year's on the beach, and it was a great New Year's Eve celebration. Today we're sharing some photos from New Year's Eve 2018, on a beach in southern Sri Lanka.

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Celebrate New Year in Sri Lanka

As we were travelling over Christmas and New Year, we needed to plan to celebrate New Year in Sri Lanka. Already at home we planned to go down to the coast for New Year. We did some reading and saw that many people recommend celebrating New Year at Mirissa or Weligama, two places that are close to each other in the southern part of the country. We ended up choosing to go to Weligama, where we were greeted by a long and very nice sandy beach.

Hotels by the beach

When we were home in Sweden, we wondered if we should pre-book a hotel for New Year. Then it didn't happen. We had a lot to do, and it simply didn't happen. Now we know that many hotels at the most popular beaches in Sri Lanka are fully booked at New Year, but not all of them.

If you want a certain type of accommodation or a specific location, it's a good idea to book in advance. If you haven't done so, you can still find rooms. We found two double rooms at Neptune Story Resort in Weligama. This hotel was more expensive than the ones we stayed at before (about 1100 SEK per double room on New Year's Eve), but it felt just right to live a little better on New Year's Eve!

At this hotel, we got accommodation in cosy bungalows right next to the beach, and there was also a nice pool. The only downside was that WiFi worked poorly, which was not at all the case earlier in the trip.

New Year's dinner on the beach

Of course, we wanted to celebrate New Year in Sri Lanka on the beach. We first checked out the seafood buffet at the more luxurious neighbouring hotel, but found that 1200 SEK per person was more expensive than we had expected. We instead chose the beach restaurant at our own hotel, which grilled fresh fish and served various Sri Lankan dishes. It suited us perfectly! We got the last table in the sand and added luxury to the evening by ordering white wine.

Peter and I each chose a fresh fish from a whole range of fish on a bed of ice, and then had it grilled with fried potatoes and salad. Very good! Our starter (a prawn cocktail) was admittedly served after main course, but that's what happens in Asia. The luxury is not that the service is perfect, but to sit in the warm air, with your feet in the sand and look at the sea. A fantastic New Year's Eve dinner!

New Year celebrations on the beach

Small fires were lit all along the beach, and many of the hotels prepared for fireworks. The occasional rocket was set off in the early evening, before the biggest rockets went off at 12 o'clock.

When the clock struck 12 at night, the biggest rockets were fired, and the sky was brightly coloured with fireworks. The more luxurious hotel next to us, W15, had a few more rockets than the other hotels, which suited us who were celebrating right next door.

Hotel W15 also had a DJ who played good music so here we, and others on the beach, hung out for a while after 12 o'clock. It was really successful to celebrate New Year in Sri Lanka!

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