I had a bad experience with Rail Tours, operating out of the "Tourist Information Office" in front of the main train station in Colombo. The travel agent's name is Prasanna, and he proved to be a persistent and capable liar. I had made most of my travel arrangements on my own, but I had a five-day gap in the middle of my journey, and in a moment of weakness, I made the mistake of allowing Rail Tours to fill it in for me. Prasanna told me that I would be getting the "government rate" on the hotels. Well, government employees must pay a much higher rate than tourists, because after leaving Rail Tours' office, I found way cheaper rates on the Internet for the hotels I was assigned. When I called Prasanna and told him this, he said my rooms were in a "new wing" and/or were "suites." This wasn't true; they were just ordinary (sub)standard rooms in junky hotels that work with this unscrupulous tourist information office. In addition, Prasanna sold me a wrong train ticket. The main reason I agreed to his services was that I wanted to secure an observation car reservation for the scenic route between Ella and Nanu Oya (near Nuwara Eliya). But on the day of the train ride, I found that my ticket was not for the observation car but a regular, cheaper car in the middle of the train, with an inferior view. This was very disappointing. On top of all this, Prasanna doled out the needed travel funds to my driver a little bit each day via banks and partner hotels, so we were constantly detouring here and there to get money for a quarter tank of gas at a time. Crazy! I don't know about other Sri Lankan tour operators, but I can't imagine they are any worse than Prasanna and his cronies at Rail Tours (or whatever name the "tourist information office" at the Fort Railway Station in Colombo, Sri Lanka, decides to call itself in the future). Avoid! You've been warned.






