(Click here for more posts about hotels in Sri Lanka)Nuwara Eliya is one of those places I absolutely require some colonial splendor. I mean, it's little England, after all. But, recently, when visiting there for work I found myself unable to fit the Hill Club, which is my usual haunt, into our accommodation budget. So we had to limbo lower ...
(Click here for more posts about hotels in Sri Lanka)(Click here for more posts about beach accomodation in Sri Lanka)Matara has some great beaches. What it does not have is some of the best accommodation. Hotels in and around Matara are basic at best and do not use its best feature. Polhena Reef Garden Hotel, for example, is on a ...
(Click here for more posts about hotels in Sri Lanka)(Updated Sep 2010)Many hotels in Sri Lanka have evocative names that they do not live up to - "beach" hotels with minimal, unswimmable beaches, "resorts" which barely meet the criteria of a single star and "eco" lodges which are eco only because the plumbing doesn't work.Rock View Hotel (Motel?), near the ...
(Click here for more posts about hotels in Sri Lanka)(Updated Sep 2010)When people in Sri Lanka go to watch cricket in Dambulla, where do they stay? Habarana or Kandalama or Sigiriya are the usual answers. Recently, we visited Thilanka Resort and Spa in Dambulla itself, of which, thanks to its unprepossessing name, we weren't expecting much. But we did have ...
(Click here for more posts about hotels in Sri Lanka)Trincomalee is blessed with spectacular beaches but not particularly blessed with reasonably priced hotels to enjoy them in. John Keells' Chaaya Blu is nice but far from reasonably priced. Nilaveli Beach Hotel is reasonably priced but far from nice.So this time when we went, we thought we'd try out the oldest ...
(Click here for more posts about Jaffna Sri Lanka and its food / cuisine)(Click here for more posts about hotels, guest houses and holiday villas / bungalows in Sri Lanka)Pious pilgrims bundled in buses singing Sinhala songs are going to Jaffna. Swanky socialites piled into Pajeros playing pop are going to “Jaff”. We like to mix it up so we ...
(Click here for more posts about hotels in Sri Lanka)(Click here for more posts about beach accomodation in Sri Lanka)Arugambay is full of places to stay. None of them are super posh but they're usually cheap. LKR 700 was the cheapest rate I was quoted and LKR 5000 was the most expensive. To find a place to stay, we just ...
This Google map is for all the blog reviews of hotels in Sri Lanka. If anyone has reviews of hotels/restaurants on their blogs, please give me the links in the comments so I can include it in this map.Judging whether a hotel is near where you want to go by address, especially in SL, is not the easiest unless you ...
People like to visit a hotel they are already familiar with so that they won't have any unpleasant surprises. New Sri Lankan hotels, as a result have a huge barrier to overcome before the beach-pool-and-buffet crowd comes to visit them. We always felt a little superior to them. We used to find hotels in the HIT Ads and if we ...
I’ve always liked Singaporean food. Liked it enough that I used to plan day long stopovers in Singapore just to eat at hawker centers. The Malay ingredients, the Chinese methods and the Indian spices that make up Singaporean cuisine go to show that Asian fusion is not something Western chefs invented recently.Recently, two Singaporean places opened up. Prima, probably the ...
(Click here for more posts about hotels in Sri Lanka)(Click here for more posts about restaurants/places to eat in Sri Lanka)One of my favorite legacies from our colonial overlords is strawberries and cream. The tartness of the strawberries countered by the sweetness of the cream with a little white sugar crunch is, without a doubt, one of the best bits of oppression ...
(Click here for more posts about hotels in Sri Lanka)Hundreds of years ago, the people of Sri Lanka used to build lakes. Whether they liked it or were forced to like it or were paid to like it – King Dutugemunu had a budget - is another thing but they did. Their ancestors tend to prefer more leisurely lake-related activities. ...
I spent a lot of time eating out in 2009. These are a few of the standouts:Fine Dining - I've always appreciated the Cinnamon hotels because the food there is good but not overpriced. Their Epicurean menu (LKR 1600++, Thursdays) at Tao, Cinnamon Grand, +94 011 2497369 - a 24 item tasting menus - is a good example. There may ...
When I went recently with a group of IT BPO people to Galle for a career fair, I found out that not everyone knows about chicken/cheese and chocolate rotis. They're just like egg rotis but, instead of egg, they're filled with chocolate or cheese and chicken. These tasty beasts are endemic to Hikkaduwa - the original rotti shop is in ...
To visit Anuradhapura is to relive some of our country's past glories. We file past bricks and foundation and conjure up the palaces and princes written about in our history books. What better place to stay, then, than one which has the same sense of history about it?The Tissa Wewa Grand Rest House in Anuradhapura is the oldest rest house ...
I've always been a bit of a pizza snob. To me, real pizza is not Italian - it never was - but New York pizza. I think it's the water. In most places here in Colombo, the pizza just doesn't feel right in an I-don't-know-much-about-art-but-I-know-what-I-like manner. Even Il Ponte at the Hilton, which possesses a wood fired brick oven, only ...
The year has been a tumultuous one. Lehman Brothers and Danduwam Mudalali, failed in different ways. Asantha De Mel left his office, poppin' his zero cost collar and blaming everyone else.Yet us Sri Lankans continue caring for nothing other than what's for dinner (heta marunath...). But in our precarious economic times, we have cut back, eating it as cheaply as ...
Embilipitiya is one of our new urban centers, 200km from Colombo. Drive into town and you can see a town that in a few years will become a city. When my dad was doing an agribusiness here, we used to stay at Centauria. Now, however, they have overbuilt the place - the view from the restaurant of the lake is ...
In my previous existence in New York City, we used to go to the most upscale restaurants and see how we could come out with the lowest bill. We used to call this game 'Being Broke.' Or 'Being Poor.'Here in Sri Lanka, the way to do this is to go into a posh hotel and eat at the coffee shop ...
We Sri Lankans eat Chinese food till MSG bubbles out of our ears. And we love chilli and coconut. Put these together and you have Singaporean food. Recently, to my particular joy, two Singaporean places opened up. Prima Taste I've reviewed here and didn't like much. This review is of the second one, Long Feng at Trans Asia, which after ...
