2 girls, 1 Tuk Tuk, 0 manual driving experience…what could possibly go wrong?
When Erin and I decided last minute to travel Sri Lanka together, we knew we wanted to do it in style. None of the usual public buses or trains…we wanted full control over our route and time. We heard from friends that it was fairly easy to rent your own tuk-tuk and take it anywhere you want to go. We immediately loved the idea of the wind in our hair, playing obnoxiously loud tunes, and making the boring travel days a part of the adventure.
We were originally going to book with rentatuktuk.com as we saw thats what most other bloggers had used. It appeared to be the most legit website for foreigners as they provided insurance, local licences, pick-up/ drop off services, and a help line. Butttt it was a bit pricey for my liking. I knew we could find it cheaper if we rented a tuk tuk from a local rather than a fancy website. So we scoured the internet/ google maps and found a random local man with a tuk tuk rental shop. We called him and he offered to drive the tuk tuk to us so we could have a look. He also offered us driving lessons and all of the services the fancy website provided…but for half the price. Much better 🙂
To drive a tuk tuk in Sri Lanka the law requires you to have a local licence, an international one won’t suffice. We heard all these stories of travelers getting pulled over by the police for a license check, so we wanted to avoid the whole ‘bribe a cop’ thing and just do things by the book for once. We provided a passport sized photo to our guy so he could go to the licence office and submit our info for us. You can technically do this process yourself for cheaper but it would require you to be in Colombo and wait in the lines etc. We were happy to pay a bit extra so we didn’t have to go to the Sri Lankan equivalent of the DMV.
Once we had our local licences, we were ready to go! Oh wait…just kidding we have no friggen idea how to drive one of these crazy things. The tuk tuks drive manual with a clutch and gears…well that was a big oversight on our part; we had assumed they would be automatic. To be completely honest, I didn’t even know what a clutch was before this… I’m still not 100% sure what it actually is. Erin mastered the art of the tuk tuk much quicker than me. She was clearly our driving teachers favorite, but I was happy to take the back seat if it meant we wouldn’t tumble off the cliff side. After a wee panic attack mid traffic jam stall, I eventually got the hang of it and could pull my weight with the driving (if you count stalling 8 times per drive “pulling my weight”).
We named our Tuk Tuk Blacky White aka lil Blacky. She was our trusted steed as we drove from Mirissa all along the coast to Hiriketiya. We then drove North to Udawalawe National park for our elephant safari. Our longest drive was 8 hours even further north to Ella where we drove past waterfalls, rice fields, mountains, rivers, jungles, and local schools. Driving in some areas where there are no tourists, we were quite the spectacle for locals. We often had people taking pictures of us or waving/giving thumbs up. It’s not everyday you see two white girls whipping a tuk tuk around town.
It was so convenient to always have a ride and not have to rely on public transport or paying for tuk tuks every time you wanted to leave the hostel. We did give a few people rides from time to time, but there isn’t much space in the back. On travel days with the backpacks, there is only space for two. But without the bags, you can squeeze 3 (or four if someone is on a lap). We actually thought that more people would have a tuk tuk since we thought it was the thing to do. But in the whole month I was in Sri Lanka, we saw maybe 3 people with their own ride. This just made the novelty of it all even more unique!
Once we were in Ella, we wanted to experience the famous Ella to Kandy train ride; so we paid our guy to drive the tuk tuk to Kandy for us while we were on the train. If you do rent a tuk tuk, this seems to be a common thing to ask for since a lot of tourists want to experience the gorgeous train journey.
So let’s cut to the chase, what did it all cost?
~~~PRICES~~~
– TUK TUK RENTAL: 4,000 LKR PER DAY ($12 USD)
-LOCAL LICENSE: 15,000 LKR PER PERSON ($45 USD)
-DROP OFF IN A DIFF LOCATION THAN PICK-UP: 12,000 LKR ($35 USD)
-ELLA TO KANDY DRIVE SERVICE: 9,000 LKR ($30 USD)
-GAS: 2,500 LKR PER TANK REFILL ($7 USD)
-REFUNDABLE DEPOSIT: 60,000 LKR ($200 USD)
-GRAND TOTAL: $240 USD PER PERSON
We rented our tuk tuk for 3 weeks in total and drove it whenever we could. For longer drive days we would refill once or twice a day. On days where we didn’t drive around too much, we could make a tank last 3 or 4 days. In total I would say we paid around 35 USD each for gas in 3 weeks. So our grand total was roughly $240 per person. Of course, using public transport would have been cheaper but if you take into account all the small tuk tuk rides you would have to take from the bus station to the hostel etc, I don’t think we vastly overpaid. Whatever extra we did pay was more than worth it for the adventure and the freedom!
I also want to say that the buses in Sri Lanka are WILD. Like actually insane. I took one once and was very happy to never do it again. They drive incredibly fast/dangerous and barely even stop for you to hop on. They are typically very crowded with no AC and blaring music. The drivers have a death wish… I’m sure of it.
For the most part, we barely had any hiccups. We did once accidentally drive it on the highway and had to get the police to help us turn around since we hadn’t exactly mastered how to reverse yet. Another time we woke up and our side mirror was just gone. Disappeared into the night, never to be seen again. So we went to a local auto shop and they put a new one on for us and it cost a whopping $0.86 cents (including the install)!!
Erin also once backed up and took a fence out of the ground. But like, who put that fence there?! We had to push lil Blacky a number of times when she wouldn’t start or backup. But as time went on we had fewer and fewer mistakes.
Overall, it was an incredible experience getting to drive around Sri Lanka and see certain areas we would have never been able to explore otherwise.
Once our 3 weeks was up, we drove one last time to Negombo where the airport is. Our guy came to pick up lil Blacky and give our $200 deposit back. Everything worked out pretty smoothly considering, and we somehow arrived back home in one piece.
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