 |
| Amangalla, old world/ photo: hotel |
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. After the 2004 tsunami, the end of terrorism, and the consolidation of government control, the tourism infrastructure is being developed. Schemes are planned for new tourism areas in the northeast while the deep south is to have an international airport to complement its newly opened deep water harbour. While old mass-market Sri Lanka beach resorts are being renovated, 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.
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. However, room rates are rising to match increasing local living and development costs while the availability of experienced, knowledgeable staff isn’t matching demand, so the cost of a holiday in Sri Lanka isn’t always the great value for money it used to be.
 Hotel Contact Information
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 before it speeds up and hikes prices.
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.
Send us your Feedback / Letter to the Editor
 |
| Illuketia: colonial charms/ photo: hotel |
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” (festival of the tooth) season in Kandy, which falls in July/August and the seasonal peak of July/August at east coast resorts.
Minivans with an English-speaking driver can be hired from SLRs6,500 (about US$59) 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 from 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 casket bearing Buddha's tooth 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.
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's Folly: pure whimsy |
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 two, have shared bathrooms and the hotel enjoys the unusual intimacy of a travellers’ club. 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 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.
Less then a 45-minute drive from Kandy, Ellerton began its current existence when a bungalow and mini tea factory were bought by a British couple for their retirement. So many people wanted to stay, they replaced the disused factory with extra accommodation and equipped the bungalow for paying guests. The bungalow – at 2,400 feet above sea level – is set atop a 12-acre tea plantation. The whole valley below features organic vegetation so there is an amazing abundance of birdlife.
 |
| Madu Ganga verandah |
Guests stay in the main bungalow with its two double and one single guest rooms, or in the new Valley House also with two doubles and one single. All bedrooms have en suite bathrooms with hot water. There is a swimming pool with a view for 20 miles down the forested valley; meals are served in a dining pavilion overlooking the forest. The retreat has several secluded corners so guests who don’t know each other can keep to themselves, or join in the polite house party atmosphere.
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 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.
On the same road from Kandy to Nuwara Eliya, a former tea planter’s bungalow has been converted with panache in a chintzy colonial style next to the renowned, visitor-friendly Labookellie Tea Factory. Taprospa Labookellie Villa has three bedrooms, each with a Jacuzzi with garden and valley view, and an inhouse qualified masseur on call to soothe limbs aching from hiking in the hills. It’s billed as being “boutique luxury in harmony with nature.”
Inland parkland retreats
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 11 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.
 |
| Vil Uyana: wetland fantasy |
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 bathtubs and rain showers are features of spacious bathrooms in 115sq m rooms. While rubbing shoulders with nature, expect such modern wonders as 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 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.
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.
 |
| Deer Park: eco friendly |
The Deer Park, set well within the jungle, mixes 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.
Eastern Sri Lanka resorts
The east coast just north of the huge natural harbour of Trincomalee, is experiencing a resurgence in popularity, even outside its peak season of May to October, following the transformation of the forlorn Club Oceanic into the trendy Chaaya Blu. The transformation is more than the addition of mosaic mirror walls and glittering disco balls in the lobby; it’s like a brand new hotel with a deliberate retro touch. Leading from the lobby is a boardwalk heading past the huge swimming pool to the beach, with rooms (confusingly called chalets) in blocks of four on one side, and beach rooms on the other.
Entrance to the new rooms is from a private verandah or terrace. With walls and furniture of white with orange cushions galore and a denim half-counterpane on the bed, each room is as bright and as cheerful as the hotel’s sunny setting. And the food, whether in the main open-sided restaurant or in the beachside crab speciality restaurant, is delicious.
A few minutes walk along the beach from Chaaya Blu, but a lot farther than that in comfort and trendiness, at about a tenth of the price too, is Club Dive Paradise. With its doors, walls and shutters painted bright reggae colours, this particular paradise is reminiscent of the hippy era of the 1970s. There are only six small guestrooms, basic in amenities with metal frame beds and a single, thin pillow, and attached shower and toilet cubicle.
 |
| Heritance Tea Factory/ photo: hotel |
The atmosphere is so laid back, the staff of amiable youngsters either relax in the hammocks spun between palm trees, jog along the beach, or jig around to music. Food, freshly caught or straight from the Trincomalee market, is prepared whenever guests are hungry. Staying there is to discover what cheap and cheerful simple holidays by the beach in Sri Lanka used to be like.
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 10 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.
One of the most unusual hotels is a few miles from Nuwara Eliya, at Kandapola, 6,700 feet above sea level, in the middle of acres of rolling hillsides carpeted with tea and often bathed in mist. The Heritance 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.
 |
| Cinnamon room/ photo: hotel |
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.
A 10-minute drive from there leads to a modern purpose-built holiday home, the MF Bungalow, ideal for families or friends who want modern fittings as well as olde world charm. Each room has a double and a single bed and an attached bathroom with shower and lots of hot water. There are three lounges and a large dining room with valley views. Cook and staff are on hand to prepare meals from guests’ supplies.
There is another bungalow resort near Ella, to the east of Bandarawela. Called without pretension, simply Planter’s Bungalow, it’s a treat for those who want to retreat to nature with every comfort, good food and fine conversation (if the British host is in residence). There are three double bedrooms, including one with an enormous sitting room, and a separate tiny cottage with outside bathroom and kitchen and rooftop dining deck. This is an elegant bungalow home with superb food (the owners once ran a Michelin-star inn in Britain), in a picturesque setting at a bargain price.
 |
| Kelbourne Rose Cottage/ photo: hotel |
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. Highcliffe 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 and raucous bar in the old-fashioned plantation 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 a butler is always on call.
Aerie Cottage has two parlours, two bedrooms (each with attached bathroom), and there are another 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.
Beside the road at Haldummulla, actually 180km from Colombo on the road to Haputale, Mount Field Cottage is an extraordinary creation of cottages carved out of rock and created with timber and granite like a tropical Portmeirion crawling up a hillside to a rock pool at the top. Each cottage is uniquely (if eccentrically) furnished and a delight to stay in, with secret cupboards, split levels and balconies with breathtaking views.
 |
| The Fortress rooms, Koggala: airy |
Staff run up and down narrow stone steps serving meals in the rooms or at the terrace restaurant where a breadfruit tree grows through the roof. Breakfast is serious with sensational curries and home-baked breads. Guests easily shed any extra weight by climbing up and down to the cottages. A memorable and low cost experience.
Sri Lanka beach resorts
Sri Lanka’s south coast offers a variety of places to stay, both on the beach and inland. Close to the Kalamatiya Bird Sanctuary, off the Tangalle/Hambantota highway, seek out Turtle Bay Hotel. Land all along this coast has been sold for development but until that happens, guests can gaze from the hotel’s swimming pool on a bluff over the long sweep of deserted beach with nary a building in sight among the coconut palms.
Unlike Sri Lanka’s other boutique hotels this one has an agreeable lack of formality, being owned and run by young Sri Lankans who delight in giving guests what they want, whether it’s breakfast at 4pm or giant prawns for brunch. There are five huge (40sq m) suites on the upper floor, each with an oversized bed (no mosquito nets as there are no mosquitoes) big bathroom, wooden floors and tea/coffee maker; TV only on request. Two ground floor rooms open onto the pool. A relaxed resort proving very popular with British guests so advance reservation is essential.
 Continuing westwards along the south coast just outside Tangalle is the stunning Amanwella Resort, 77km from Galle. Amanwella is resolutely modernist in contrast to its sister hotel, Amangalla in Galle Fort. The first glimpse new arrivals have is a forest of tall, black square concrete columns complementing the palm trees of its coconut grove location.
 |
| Amanwella: modern touches |
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.)
Farther along the south coastal westwards road to Galle, there is The Fortress, which opened on the beach at Koggala in 2007. It has 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.
“Organic Sri Lankan cuisine prepared over cinnamon wood fires by the family cook,” proclaims the resort describing the attractions of the Robin Hill bungalow. It is a town bungalow, a mini-mansion in a village a short drive from the main Yala to Galle south coast highway, at Weligama. It has been carefully restored by its Sri Lankan owner with a welter of wooden furniture and tall columns contrasting with contemporary touches like busts sprouting plants.
 |
| Kahanda Kanda bungalow retreat |
Running the length of the bungalow’s courtyard is a suite of two bedrooms with an attached (but outdoor) shower/toilet. At the other side is a two-floored suite with a long private lounge furnished with antiques and dining room with its original stone floor. This is a simple, gracious place to stay for guests who want to enjoy traditional, home cooked Sri Lankan food in unpretentious surroundings. With accommodation for just six adults (with extra beds for children as long as they are over 12 years old) Robin Hill is popular for renting in its entirety.
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.
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.
On the outskirts of Galle, Closenberg is a genuinely traditional (and perhaps slightly eccentric) place, governed by the family motto (not a copywriter’s spin): “service to others comes first.” Built by a British P&O captain, Francis Bayley, as his home in 1860, it has been owned by the same Sri Lankan family since 1889. They converted it into a four-roomed hotel in 1965 adding a block of 16 bijou rooms overlooking the sea in 1983.
 |
| The Beach House/ photo: hotel |
Guests enter through verandahs that sweep around the house, below rafters carved with the rising sun motif of the P&O line. There are gardens and terraces and nooks and crannies galore, and a rock pool at the water’s edge below. The Fernery Restaurant, distinguished by a permanent rock garden of ferns, serves good southern rice and curry as well as innovative modern cuisine on demand. The staff match the hotel’s colonial image, with discreet courtesy and individuality: a touch of the Ceylon of yore.
Colonial homes and 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 a 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.
The Sun and Dutch Houses are part of the Taprobane Collection (www.taprobaneisland.com) of exclusive properties named after Taprobane Island, the only privately-owned island off the shores of Sri Lanka, at Weligama, near Galle. With five en suite bedrooms in its neo-Palladian mansion, the island of 2.5 acres of garden, complete with infinity pool, can only be reached by wading through the sea. Perfect for privacy. It is available for renting in its entirety, as is its sister property, The Beach House, with five bedrooms and resident staff, set on the beach near Tangalle. On with our Sri Lanka resorts review.
 |
| New-look Galle Fort Hotel |
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.)
 |
| Amangalla: remodelled relic |
Before beginning the drive up the west coast to Colombo, there is a secret retreat outside Galle known as Jetwing Kurulubedda. This 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.
At Kosgoda on the coast there is no clue to the architectural masterpiece accessed by a simple door set in a white painted wall at the end of a lane past village houses, beside a vacant lot where kids play cricket and villagers stroll to the beach. This is a specially designed beach holiday house, the Saffron and Blue Villa; a wondrous embracement of space where every vista is open to the sea, but where every corner intrigues. Entrance is to a cobbled courtyard with a simple pond, and a concrete slab that serves as a bar counter segueing into the open kitchen. The courtyard leads to the grand terrace beside a swimming pool with beach view, with a ceiling that soars three storeys.
There are four nifty bedrooms, each with en suite bathroom; a television room; a dining room with square table for 12; and oodles of plump cushions and sofas everywhere. The décor is both simple and alluring, brightened with a collection of exotic art. If you want to be wowed by pure holiday space, it’s available – villa only – at less per person than you’d pay for a tired room in a beach hotel. Staff are around if requested to prepare a decent curry.
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.
Shanth Fernando, the genius behind Colombo’s Paradise Road brand of tropical neo-colonial home accessories, has turned his many talents to creating Paradise Road Mohotti Villa close to the National Tourist Resort of Bentota. With its 15 rooms and suites all impressively furnished, this villa hotel is both over-the-top and laid back. The décor enhances the wow factor and does much to make up for an awkward location with a railway line separating the hotel from the beach. There are also two delightful swimming pools and a rarefied atmosphere, supported by gourmet-inclined Asian fusion cuisine.
 |
| Saman Villas pool |
There is a haven of undisturbed peace (no waves pounding the beach, no mobile phone or Internet contact) a short drive inland from the west coast metropolis of Kalutara, just 100 minutes from Colombo. No in-room telephone either, just a hand bell to summon a steward. This anachronism in Sri Lanka’s relentless rush to modernity offers two cottages and central dining and lounging pavilion at Halketha, a 10-acre working rubber estate.
A thatched awning and an ancient wooden doorframe with low transom requires visitors to crouch low, as though entering a wardrobe, to step into its orderly garden of rubber trees, tea bushes and neat crannies of flowers. Halketha is run as a hotel, with either of its two cottages available by advance reservation, no minimum stay. They are both simply equipped, with modern accoutrements (even television if you insist) but with oil lamps lighting up the garden at night. The perfect escape for a few days lazing in solitude.
Not far away the Pantiya Holiday Bungalow is just 63km from Colombo at only 900m above sea level, but with all the attributes of a traditional hill country plantation home. Built in 1907, this former home of a planter has been converted with the addition of three guestrooms and a mini-villa alongside a sparkling swimming pool. It is let only to one group at a time to ensure complete privacy. Guests can cater for themselves or have meals prepared by the cook, whose father and grandfather both cooked for the owner.
Fascinating antiques are to be seen there, including an elaborate chest made in Germany in 1711 and an intriguing chandelier of antlers, also from Germany that was made for Herman Goering. The bungalow seems to house a lot of secrets, not least in its location, making it impossible to find by chance. The perfect place for serene seclusion.
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.
 |
| Reef Beach Village/ photo: hotel |
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 |
