Seaplane Service in Sri Lanka

Painting card from?. . . Sri Lanka: a seaplane service that makes a splash.

In front of us there is the lake Polgolla's water: the airstrip for today's plane, which will soon land from the capitol Colombo. However, while a shiny new motorway now links Colombo with the south town of Galle, Sri Lanka's other landmarks - especially the east coast and the green uplands - are still difficult to access and usually require long journeys on rough, single-lane highways.

The Cinnamon Air can take you from Colombo to Kandy - usually four hours by seaplane - in just over 30mins. Service will also be expanded with the opening of new services to Sigiriya, where there is a renowned fort on a hillside in the northern part, and Batticaloa, near the best eastern beach.

Cinnamon' s service is part of an emerging seaplane use trends in Sri Lanka. During 2011, the Sri Lankan airline launched the "Air Taxi" seaplane service, which is now run by Cinnamon on a codeshare base. Simplifly now provides charter and scenic seaplane and chopper tours. I started my trip in an old-fashioned way, with a quiet rail trip up from Colombo: a dramatic but slowly progressing business that winded over steady passages before breaking into Kandy's derelict railroads.

It' s an adventure that begins when the seaplane yells ashore and thrills the students near before it goes up to a floating boat made of wood boards and barrels of fuel. Less than half an hours later we arrive at a pond near the Sri Lankan parliamentary house, which serves as a drop-off point for Colombo city centre.

Climbing out to another ratty barge and pausing to take a breather. The Cinnamon Air service is not perfect: at $172 per leg between Colombo and Kandy, the fares are high, especially in comparison to the rail. Nevertheless, Romesh David hoped that his new project would take advantage of the wider changes in Sri Lanka's tourist industry after the war.