The east coast: one of the finest natural harbours in the world, a clifftop temple above it, and white-sand beaches with reef a short boat ride offshore.
Trincomalee sits on a deep-water harbour that has been fought over by every power with a fleet in this ocean, and the town still carries the layers — a Dutch and British fort on the headland, colonial streets below it, and inside the fort walls the Koneswaram temple, a Hindu shrine of enormous antiquity perched on the cliff edge at Swami Rock with the sea a hundred metres straight down.
Most visitors come for the beaches north of town. Uppuveli is the closer and easier of the two; Nilaveli is broader, quieter and backed by casuarina. Both are proper swimming beaches with soft sand, which is not something the west coast can offer during this half of the year.
Offshore from Nilaveli lies Pigeon Island, a small national park built around a fringing reef. It is the best easily reached snorkelling in the country: living coral, reef fish in quantity, turtles, and blacktip reef sharks in the shallows which are entirely harmless and rather thrilling to swim over. Boats run from Nilaveli beach and the crossing takes about fifteen minutes.
Between roughly May and September the sea off Trincomalee is also one of the better places in Sri Lanka to see blue whales and spinner dolphins, with boats leaving early from the harbour.
