 |
| Amanwella: modern touches |
AFTER YEARS of scraping the bottom of the budget-holiday barrel, Sri Lanka resorts are striking back with top-end traveller deals and a touch of razzmatazz. In spite of the 2004 tsunami, the festering political situation and other setbacks, the tourism infrastructure remains intact. Old mass-market Sri Lanka beach resorts are showing their age, but it is the new off-the-beach-and-beaten-track retreats that have caught our eye. This will delight those who recall the gracious Ceylon of yore, as the new or revived Sri Lanka resorts emphasise individuality and a movement back to simplicity, charm and local pride.
 Hotel Contact Information  Share This Page
The domino effect of an economy damaged by civil war, led to low occupancies and lower spending, which pulled down standards and service. In recent years the country has cleaned up its act and a string of Sri Lanka boutique resorts and hotels with personalised service and impressive local food are finally taking advantage of the naturally elegant surrounds. Room rates remain low and improved facilities mean great value for money.
Send us your Feedback / Letter to the Editor Share This Page
Ancient ruins, Buddhist culture, adventure tourism, game park safaris, colonial remnants local shopping and not so local casinos are some of the big charms from this small island. Now is the time to discover Sri Lanka.
 |
| Illuketia: colonial charms/ photo: hotel |
Buffet breakfast, lunch and dinner accompanied by the local calypso band wearing silly straw hats, are long forgotten stereotypes. Signature restaurants and wellness spas have become benchmarks of a new level of sophistication for the new level of guest. You won’t find any concrete Hilton’s in this review; Sri Lanka is awash with boutique and independents experimenting with local talent and a variegated history. Stay in a tea planter’s bungalow or a villager’s mud hut, a jungle tree house or a designer villa. It’s not just the diversity that’s attractive about holidaying in Sri Lanka, but the ease of organisation. While companies can tailor-make tours, independent travellers can easily make arrangements upon arrival.
Advance reservations at Sri Lanka luxury resorts and even smaller hideaways are not necessary except at peak times such as December/January on the west and south coasts, April in Nuwara Eliya, and during the “Perahera” season in Kandy, which falls in July/August.
Minivans with an English-speaking driver can be hired from SLRs6,500 (about US$57) a day. However, if doing this, be firm and know where you want to go. Good drivers can be informative about local traditions, others may be reluctant to follow your itinerary and steer you towards gem shops or hotels where they’ll get a commission. Most inland hotels provide the driver with free food and a free bed in dedicated drivers’ quarters when they bring guests. (An exception is Helga’s Folly in Kandy, which is why drivers try to deter visitors staying there; Helga directs drivers to a local guesthouse instead.)
Kandy low-cost resorts and villas
Kandy is the ancient hill capital and has retained a charm that Colombo has lost. Two hour’s drive from the capital, it is compact with bustling but friendly crowds, a lake and the world-famous Temple of the Tooth. At the annual Perahera the tooth casket is paraded around town in a spectacular pageant with acrobatic dancers, drummers and Kandyan chieftains in attendance. Over 100 caparisoned elephants, whip crackers and jugglers take part in the 10 nights of celebration, climaxing on the night of the Esela full moon. There is a daylight Perahera the day afterwards.
 |
| Helga's Folly: pure whimsy |
Kandy figures on most visitors’ “must see” list and as a result has a range of low-cost resorts. An eccentric choice is Helga’s Folly, a sprawling red, 'Bauhaus' style building clutching the hillside, with enough fantastic décor to satisfy your inner child. “If this is a folly,” wrote a guest in one of the voluminous guest books, “it’s foolish to be wise”.
Helga, who presides over her erstwhile home with the grace of a duchess, has created a fantasy-land with outrageous colour schemes and candle-lit parlours full of antiques and whimsy. “It’s tongue-in-cheek,” she says to startled guests. “Staying here should be fun.” It’s an attitude that has made the place popular with cosmopolitan trendsetters. There are 30 rooms in operation, most are air-conditioned. All rooms have private balconies accessed through French windows and overlook magnificent mountain scenery, with glimpses of the lake and golden-roofed temple. Helga claims the swimming pool, surrounded by jungle, is guarded by fairies. The food is as memorable as the over-the-top décor, with such dishes as fish poached in tea. This retreat sets the benchmark for barmy-boutique.
The Olde Empire Hotel, by contrast, is down-to-earth, with 14 rooms and boasts a balcony, overlooking the temple square – a meeting place for young backpackers. While this is a budget hotel, the rate increases to big-spender levels during the Perahera season because of its proximity to the parading elephants. Rooms, apart from one, have shared bathrooms and the hotel enjoys the unusual intimacy of a travellers’ club and local tavern. At the other end of town, and price bracket, with impressive service and large rooms with splendid river views, the Mahaweli Reach has expanded over three decades from a family guesthouse to a 112-room, four-suite five-star resort. Mahaweli’s rooms retain a homely character, while newly renovated suites offer panoramic views of the Mahaweli River and surrounding mountains, Jacuzzi, safe, minibar, LCD TV, IDD phone and private balconies. It has a new business centre and dynamic-looking gym.
The Australian owners of Colombo’s popular Cricket Club Café have converted a century-old plantation bungalow off the Kandy to Nuwara Eliya road at Pussellawa. Lavender House is set in seven acres of tea, woods and terraced lawns with mountain views, providing you with a place of unadulterated calm. The five sumptuously furnished suites have French windows opening onto a private garden, and a gloriously retro bathroom with Victorian chain-flush toilet. The portrait of Sir Winston Churchill glowering above silk-covered wing-chairs in the lounge, clay tennis court and granite-sided swimming pool, guarantee a perfect retreat into the past for a cosy two or house party of ten. Mark this Sri Lanka colonial resort gem in your diary.
Inland parkland retreats
 |
| Madu Ganga verandah |
Farther inland, around 160km from Colombo airport, the lakeside Amaya Lake (formerly Culture Club) offers a back-to-nature experience. The Village Experience offers an intimate eleven traditional thatched-roof huts, while the four lodges and 92 chalets offer luxury and local artistry. Don’t miss the Ayurvedic Spa with their heaven-scented treatments. Children and sports enthusiasts are catered for, as is the constant-businessman, with full WiFi access. We still think you’ll want to leave the laptop at home.
With views of the vast hunchback Sigiriya Rock, wetland retreat Vil Uyana offers 25 luxurious thatched cabanas (many with their own swimming pool), amongst tall grass, paddy fields, and basking crocodiles. Large sunken bathtub and rain showers are features of spacious bathrooms in 115sq m rooms. While rubbing shoulders with nature, expect such modern wonders of air-conditioning, IDD telephone, minibar, 29 inch satellite TV, coffee and tea-making facilities, DVD/CD, safe, and even your own sarong, reed slippers and umbrella. With an extravagantly-stocked wine cellar, exquisite cuisine, and rooms that transform a childhood dream of tree-houses into five-star reality, it is the small touches that impress at Vil Uyana.
The four master-suites at the 140-unit Cinnamon Lodge (formerly the Habarana Lodge, a favourite mainstream hotel on the Cultural Triangle) seem designed for permanent residence, spread over two floors with a sarong-clad butler on call and monkeys gambolling by the lake in its vast parkland setting. Beds are piled high with silk cushions and spread with crisp, Egyptian cotton in rooms wrapped around with by balconies or verandahs. If you can tear yourself away, a plethora of local activities are on offer, such as elephant rides, a visit to the ancient ruined city of Polonnaruwua or golden temple at Dambulla. Any day out is complemented by hearty buffet fare.
 |
| Vil Uyana: wetland fantasy |
Standing starkly in 200 acres of scrubland, amongst “nature-scaped” gardens is the Elephant Corridor Hotel – so-called because of its location at the crossroads for wandering wild animals. It boasts one of Sri Lanka’s most expensive rooms; the Presidential Suite at US$1,250 (sleeps eight). There are 20 other air-conditioned suites, each with its own private terrace or garden and plunge pool. Each suite, decorated with granite blocks and striking colours, is built on a plateau for protection from animals. Elephant Corridor, in a huge reversal of buffet culture, tailors meals and meal times to your whim, even offering gastro experiences “under the trees”. Visit the “Om” wellness spa for pampering or the on-site Ayurvedic doctor for those nagging ills. It is within easy motoring distance of the Sigiriya Rock and the ruins of Anuradhapura and Polonnaruwa.
The Deer Park, set well within the jungle, mixes with urban décor to create 77 homely, well-appointed cottages and a rambling presidential villa with its own swimming pool. Located near the lake at Giritale, it is handy for viewing the ruins of Polonnaruwa as well as for indulging in environmental bliss. A patchy mobile signal seems to point to enforced relaxation but, for necessary communication, rooms have Internet access. Best to lay back and enjoy the Spa, newly refurbished under the well regarded Angsana brand. Alongside five restaurants and two bars, you can opt for private dining with a personal butler in ethereal seclusion on the banks of the reservoir – your transport, an elephant or buggy. Deer Park has a rural charm spiced with urbanity and ingenuity that pitches it among the best Sri Lanka resorts. It is also a child friendly option.
Mountain lodges, country homes, and tea
Styled as an English country house, Glendower, in the hill country retreat of Nuwara Eliya, offers a warm welcome with log fires in the public rooms. A reproduction bungalow, it has ten rooms and suites with teak floors, handcrafted polished mahogany furniture, and beds that guarantee a good night’s rest. Even the quilts are filled with silk. Close to the town centre and adjoining golf course. Its King Prawn Chinese restaurant provides a relief from the bland boarding-house fare of grander neighbouring hotels.
 |
| Deer Park: eco friendly |
One of the most unusual hotels is a few miles from Nuwara Eliya, 6,700 feet above sea level, in the middle of acres of rolling hillsides carpeted with tea and often bathed in mist. The Tea Factory resembles a gigantic, phantasmagorical construction produced by a zealous boy scout overdosing on Meccano. The exterior has preserved the original tea factory’s corrugated iron walls, painted silver, and hundreds of tall, wooden casement windows. Inside its reception hall atrium (once the tea drying room) latticed with steel, two giant wooden roof-fans turn slowly.
The Tea Factory’s “Green Philosophy” represents comprehensive energy-saving policies, sustainable community projects and delicious indigenous food. Eco-warriors and gourmets will approve. All 57 cosy bedrooms are equipped with heater, bathtub and lashings of hot water, and a kettle for making tea from the estate’s own brand. It’s a snug kind of place, ideal for lazy lingering in isolation for a few days or hiking in hills, forests and village hamlets.
A traditional, unreconstructed Sri Lankan colonial hotel that has escaped the popularity of those in Nuwara Eliya, is the Bandarawela Hotel (opened in 1893), in the neighbouring tea town of Bandarawela. Despite an occasional lick of paint or modification, it remains reassuringly locked in a time warp somewhere between 1930 and 1950. At 4,000 feet above sea level, on a bluff overlooking the town, it was originally favoured as a sanatorium by the then Ceylon’s British residents. The 33 “colonial” rooms, all with bathrooms, TV and IDD phones, are also wheelchair accessible. Its beds with brass knobs and the hushed, measured tread of the sarong-clad staff convey a sense of restful calm. Tea on the lawn or in the long verandah lounge is a ritual, and the restaurant caters for those with a tea planter’s healthy appetite.
For a real taste of the old-fashioned lifestyle, try Saffron Hill House, recently converted from his grandparents’ sprawling bungalow overlooking Bandarawela town by a SriLankan Airlines cabin steward. This magnificent discovery has four bedrooms, some of which are furnished with original art deco pieces. The décor combines 1930s flamboyance with solid modern touches and the ambience is discreet and unique. This Sri Lanka bungalow escape is worth a note in your travel diary.
 |
| Kahanda Kanda bungalow retreat |
The nearby hill country town of Haputale has been a favourite of backpackers since the days of hippies when places like Highcliffe by the railway track offered dormitory accommodation. It is still cheap and easy going but its main attraction is the new building with a secret entrance – you sidle inside an opening in the wall to find stairs leading up to a new but decidedly uncompromising and raucous bar in the old fashioned plantation workers' style. Great fun. Good accommodation is now available at the gleaming new Olympus Plaza Hotel that will surely make Haputale more popular. The 30 simply furnished rooms cling to the hillside on four floors below the reception lobby, and there is a panoramic rooftop bar with stunning views.
What about those wonderful Sri Lanka bungalow resorts? While there are now several tea plantation bungalows that take guests, the pioneer is the Kelbourne Mountain Resort, at Haputale. With gob-smacking views across forested canyons right down to the south coast, there are three bungalows set in the hillside around a central garden that has a dining pavilion and kitchen. Meals from the resident chef’s menu can be served in each bungalow’s dining room and Ravi, the butler, is always on call.
Aerie Cottage has two parlours, two bedrooms (each with attached bathroom), and two bungalows that sleep six each. Tea grows up to the window ledges. The planter’s lifestyle (butler and cook on hand with meals from a plantation menu) can also be enjoyed at the hill country Sherwood and Thotalagala bungalows near Haputale, Rosita bungalow at Kotagla and St Andrew’s bungalow at Talawakelle. Overlooking deep valleys of tea and drenched in colonial charm, these villa-like establishments each sleep 10 in chintzy comfort.
 |
| Cinnamon room/ photo: hotel |
The Boulder Garden Nature Resort, near Ratnapura and the Sinharaja Forest, comes with a health warning on its rate sheet: “It is home to many jungle creatures and they visit our guest facilities. Our suites are thatched…wide open to the symphony of nature.” But they are elegantly furnished and have attached bathrooms. The bar is in a natural cave, the restaurant under a rock. All sorts of adventures are promised or simple relaxation in a wonderfully natural environment. For a real backwoodsman encounter with nature, guests can stay in one of four tree houses at Rafter’s Retreat on the banks of the Kitulgala River. In one cabin the bathroom is down a ladder made of branches hidden under a trap door set in the planks of the floor. Daylong white-water river rafting expeditions, with lunch of village cooking, take off from the retreat.
Off the main road at Kitulgala, a rough trail (called the Beli Lena Road) leads uphill to the distinctive Royal River Resort. This complex of four rooms in two separate blocks is surrounded by a river that feeds into the rock infinity pool. Large windows keep rooms bright and four-poster beds keep them comfortable. Bathrooms are basic. Food is refreshingly simple and prepared in a galleried kitchen where guests in the pool can look up and see the chefs at work. A great resort for a party of friends.
Countryside living in style can be found at Illuketia, a few kilometres inland from the southern coastal road near Galle. The property consists of two villas, one with its own pond and open-air bathrooms, another with cloistered rooms around an interior swimming pool. The furniture is bold colonial, with Chinese touches, and the atmosphere grand.
 |
| The Fortress rooms, Koggala: airy |
Featured with awe in glossy magazines worldwide Kahanda Kanda, off a country lane heading inland nine kilometres east of Galle, was originally built as the owner’s private, fantasy residence following his purchase of an abandoned 12-acre tea plantation in 2000. He has since created a retreat of two suites in the original bungalow, three vast guest pavilions, with a stunning swimming pool, ponds, and two recreational pavilions. Each room has been individually styled by in-vogue Sri Lankan designers. Furniture is made locally to the owner’s design. Luxurious extras like the double shower and attentive service make you feel at home.
Colonial homes and Sri Lanka luxury hotels
The Sun House was created as a fine Sri Lanka boutique hotel in a colonial mansion overlooking the Galle harbour. The approach, up a road lined with suburban houses to a door set in a wall, gives no inkling of the idle splendour within. It now has seven double bedrooms with the recent addition of a more modern suite with balcony and large bathroom complete with huge terrazzo bath. The large Cinnamon suite has bath on the balcony for languishing in private under the stars. Dick's Bar, another addition, looks out onto the courtyard. Dining is on the loggia by a garden with terraces and a sunken swimming pool. High walls keep out the world. This is among the better Sri Lanka resorts in this review.
Across the road, the renovated Dutch House known as Doornberg was built in 1712 – the outside wall and entrance verandah look appropriately “period” with peeling umber paint. Its four huge, immaculately kept bedrooms come with antique colonial furniture including Edwardian-style bathtubs. Columned cloisters enclose a sun-drenched lawn, with frangipani blossoms floating in clay pots and a path that leads to a lower-level infinity swimming pool. Room rates at both properties include breakfast and afternoon tea.
 |
| Amangalla: remodelled relic |
The only hotel in Sri Lanka to achieve the distinction of a UNESCO Heritage Award for Cultural Heritage Conversion is located in the very heart of Galle. The conservation and conversion of a 17th century Dutch mansion into the Galle Fort Hotel was done with passion and love by Malaysian, former investment banker, Chris Ong, and his Australian, former film producer partner, Karl Steinberg. Guests enter through the verandah, adapted to a café serving eclectic food conceived by Ong, and a dining hall furnished with exquisite Chinese porcelain, to a courtyard with swimming pool and tall columns. Food is a central theme and four-course "Asian Fusion' dinners are served in the frangipani garden.
Three garden rooms lead off the cloisters and there are nine elaborately furnished suites including the largest (2,500sq f) in Sri Lanka. All this pomp and grandeur is made more fun by the serving lads who, instead of the traditional tunics and sarongs, wear beach shorts and t-shirts. The place has become an iconic Galle Fort experience and several international magazines have done fashion shoots there. The hotel has recently added a superb gallery selling a small but exquisite collection of art and antiques.
In the same road and league as a Sri Lanka luxury hotel, is Amangalla (formerly the New Oriental). Parts of the building hark back to its days as a barracks during the 17th century Dutch construction of the fort. Visitors who pop in for drink on the broad, art deco tiled verandah, as they did many years previously, are astonished by the successful transformation of the property from seedy to sophisticated.
The dated essence of its predecessor has been lovingly enhanced with spit and polish. The shining wooden floorboards of the Grand Hall are original, as are the metre-thick walls and the corridors of suites and chambers. While four-poster beds and some of the chunky period furniture remain, more comfortable, slimmer pieces have been added creating a confident elegance. Hidden in the cloistered garden is a huge, sleekly modern swimming pool and The Baths – a spa. Amangalla is among the top Sri Lankan luxury resorts, especially with its new programme of traditional Ayurveda therapy. There is a three-day taster programme and a 14-day Ayuveda detox holiday with a strict vegetarian diet. (Amanwella and Amangalla are featured in our Top Asian Hotels section with more information and stunning visuals.)
 |
| Renovated Galle Fort Hotel |
Close to Weligama in the far south is the 60-room Barberyn Beach Ayurveda Resort set on 15 landscaped acres looking onto the Indian Ocean. Expect a herbal garden, swimming pool, and a range of options from yoga to acupuncture, herbal steam baths and massage. The same group runs the Barberyn Reef Ayurveda Resort at Beruwala, 58km south of Colombo with 75 rooms and a similar array of yoga, massage, and "pranayama" (breathing technique).
Amanwella is 77km from Galle along the south coast road, at Tangalle. The drive takes at least two hours, allowing time for adjustment to the contrast in Aman styles. Amanwella is resolutely modernist, the first glimpse new arrivals have being a forest of tall, black square concrete columns complementing the palm trees of its coconut grove location. Accommodation at this hideaway, among the best Sri Lanka luxury resorts, is in 30 villas strung out in three tiers along a hillside curving around a golden beach. The villas have glass-sided walls and no curtains, and partial privacy comes from the closing of lattice screens. With roofs of old clay tiles, the villas blend beautifully into the environment and inside all the furniture and fittings are locally made from dark-grained palm wood.
The latest technology powers the lights and air-conditioning which means some guests need instruction on how to operate them. Each villa has a private swimming pool and there is a huge one in the main complex, where there is also a library, a restaurant with an excellent menu, and a bar so demurely lit at night, one wonders if it’s there. (Amanwella and Amangalla are featured in our Top Asian Hotels section with more information and stunning visuals.)
Sri Lanka beach resorts
 |
| Saman Villas pool |
On with our Sri Lanka resorts review, this time along the sands. The Fortress, which opened on the beach at Koggala on Sri Lanka’s south coast in 2007, announced the world’s most expensive dessert, a chocolate and gold leaf confection with an 80-carat aquamarine for US$14,500, as part of its ambitions to position itself as an exclusive resort for high net-worth visitors. Its 49 suites are defiantly modern in design and gadgets (an iPod in every one), set in a huge reproduction fortress stretching along the beach with the longest swimming pool in the country, and for the hedonist, a wine cellar dining parlour with glass cutlery, crystal glasses and a floor of crushed marble.
Jetwing Kurulubedda offers two timber chalets with upper deck of bedroom and sun platform, and lower floor given over to a cement tub plunge pool, set in a vegetable garden by a river. Reached by boat, arranged through the nearby mainstream Lighthouse Hotel in Galle, this is a miniature bird sanctuary and nature haven, with its own teak-decked restaurant for just four guests, with a personal chef and stewards on hand.
Reached by boat along the river from the bridge at Balapitiya, about 84km south of Colombo, Madu Ganga Villa is a blissful retreat set in a wooded garden, landscaped with antiques by its young Sri Lankan owner. There are floating rooms, riverside rooms, and jungle cottages, all with basic bathrooms. As well as a floating restaurant, there is a riverside dining room created with antique screens, and an inviting swimming pool shaded by kitul palms. Nothing is rushed, the food is genuinely Sri Lankan (fresh river crab, rich pork curry) and the resort is a discovery you’ll want to visit again and again – before the price goes upmarket.
Among the first of Sri Lanka’s boutique hotels was Saman Villas. Built in 1995, some rooms have swimming pools. All have spectacular views over the ocean and golden, unspoilt beaches that extend from both sides of the rocky outcrop it perches on. With only 27 suites, decoratively and practically furnished (no modern gadgetry here), this hotel has matured into a reliable, popular place for sun and sea worshippers.
 |
| Reef Beach Village/ photo: hotel |
Although it's a town one would normally drive through (it's an hour by car from Colombo on the road to Galle), Wadduwa now has two of the most impressive places in the whole country in which to stay. The Reef Beach Villa bills itself as "the ultimate tropical beach villa" but is really much more. For a start, forget the beach – it’s a murky strip of fenced-off sand and the sea's not for swimming. However, from the moment guests arrive they are transported into a wonderland. A narrow path wanders through a tropical garden to rival Kew's, leading gently away from the cacophony of the Galle Road to other secret lanes of flowers, ponds and stepping stones to elegant rooms of immense proportions designed with breathtaking extravagance on Indo-colonial lines. Punkah fans, marble floors, bathtubs hewn from a single block of granite, antique Calcutta four-poster beds, teak furniture, clay tile roofs, are all complemented with the latest mod cons (TVs, safe and minibar are hidden in ancient almirahs). Seven guest suites, pavilions for private dining on gourmet cuisine, a sea view lawn, swimming pool and amenable staff combine to make this a relaxing – and not awkwardly modern – retreat.
Farther along the road to Galle at Wadduwa inland between the 33km and 34km posts, is another serendipitous discovery: Nidahasa. Consisting of three separate suites filled with music and fantasy in a garden – a fairyland at night when hidden lights and candles are lit. There are two secret waterfalls (one spouting from a tree) in the garden, a swimming pool inside the house, a gym complete with satellite TV in an old cottage, and a clay-walled hut and rush-mat kiosk for socialising at night. Meals on request, willing young staff, and a pleasing informality make guests feel comfortable and at home. An amazing place to unwind after visiting everywhere else.
And that’s our guide to the best Sri Lanka resorts from budget and bungalow escapes to high-end colonial retreats, tea garden getaways, Sri Lanka spas, and luxury resorts.
Send us your Feedback / Letter to the Editor
|
