Wild Swimming in Sri Lanka: Beyond the Beach

The ocean gets most of the attention in Sri Lanka and the ocean deserves it. But the interior of the island has its own water world: rivers, waterfalls, reservoirs, rock pools, and forest streams that offer swimming of a completely different character — cooler, quieter, and often completely private.

Bambarakanda Falls in the Uva Province is the tallest waterfall in Sri Lanka at 263 metres. The base pool is swimmable and reached by a trail through forest. Coming out of the jungle heat into the cold mist at the base of a waterfall that falls from that height is one of the more viscerally satisfying experiences in the country.

The Kitulgala area on the Kelani River is the white water rafting centre of Sri Lanka. But the same river offers calm pools for swimming between the rapids, and the surrounding rainforest is genuinely extraordinary. Kitulgala is where David Lean filmed The Bridge on the River Kwai in 1957 and the bridge pylons are still visible in the river. Swimming among film history in a jungle river while birds call from the canopy above is a specific Sri Lankan pleasure.

The ancient irrigation reservoirs, called wewas, that dot the dry zone landscape are another swimming world entirely. These are man-made lakes built by ancient Sinhalese kings to store rainwater for agriculture, some dating back two thousand years. Many are still in active use and some have been developed for eco-tourism. Swimming in a wewa at sunset, with the dry zone forest on the banks and birds coming in to roost, is a genuinely meditative experience.