Sri Lanka is approximately the area of West Virgina, but speaking from experience, travelling across the windy roads of the state of West Virginia is exponentially less complicated and treacherous than a comparable trip in Sri Lanka. The furthest points in West Virginia are approximately 400 miles apart. In Sri Lanka, they are approximately 300 miles apart. However, the drive between the furthest points in Sri Lanka takes two hours longer. Why so? Oh, there are so many reasons: dogs in the road, cows in the road, elephants in the road, people in the road, narrow roads, dirt roads, pothole roads and windy roads, not to mention that Sri Lanka has less than one hundred miles of highway in the entire country. Travel is easy in that there are numerous options for public transportation... as long as you are okay sitting for the next ten (or more) hours.
Locally, buses are the transporation of choice in Sri Lanka. They are cheap, costing about a dime for a twenty minute ride, less than a dollar for a couple hours or about two dollars for a seven hour trip. Granted, these are the government buses. They don't have a lot of leg room, or seat room, for that matter; Sri Lankans are smaller than your average American. The buses don't have air conditioning, and they are often packed to the gills with people standing all along the aisles.
