Negombo Sri Lanka // Travel Photos

Updated February 6, 2020

I decided to skip Columbo and fly into Negombo. After a hot night’s sleep, I set out in the morning to go walk around. As I was walking toward the water, I met a tuk tuk driver who offered to drive me the rest of the way. I was leery of his offer as he said he didn’t want any money, he just wanted to be kind.

I ended up spending the day with him and he took me to a lot of different sites, and it was a fun day, but to make a long story short, at the end of it, when I was requesting to go to my guest house, he creeped me out and asked to have sex with me. This happened THREE TIMES with THREE different drivers. Another one of the drivers kept trying to buy me alcohol and make me drink. Female travelers in Sri Lanka beware of tuk tuk drivers offering cheap or free transport.

I loved my experience in Sri Lanka, and for the most part I loved the people, but these incidents put a damper of my experience of the country and on my first night there after the first incident, I broke down in tears, alone in my guesthouse. It was one of those travel moments when I felt utterly alone.

One of my saving graces was waking up the next morning and finding that a new traveler had arrived. She was also traveling alone, and she was also from New York! Seema and I became fast friends and planned to travel a portion of trip together, which I will talk about in my upcoming posts. Sometimes people come along at just the right time!

Here are my photos from my first day in Sri Lanka by myself. Despite it all, there was some beautiful aspects to this day and I love some of the shots I came away with.

Erica Camille is a LGBT destination wedding photographer and travel blogger based in New York City and Koh Samui Thailand. Named one of the “Top 10 Travel Blogs” by Movehub.org, her work has been featured in the New York Daily News, Heaps Magazine, and in publications worldwide.
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