(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.
In Sri Lanka, that hoary old cliche about the journey being better than the destination is actually true. What I have enjoyed most about my travels to hotels and bungalows around the country is the drive there. You pass forests, waterfalls, rivers and see ancient trees, massive bougainvilleas just growing wild on the roadside, green fields ...
(Click here for more posts about restaurants/places to eat in Sri Lanka) Regional variations don't seem to exist in Sri Lanka any more: it seems too small now to have anything that's uniquely from an area. You can eat Chilaw Crab curry anywhere in the country and no one - not even the cook - even ...
(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 ...
(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 ...
(Click here for more posts about hotels in Sri Lanka) (Click here for more posts about beach accomodation in Sri Lanka) Welle Walauwa Amor Villa was one of those serendipitious discoveries we made while looking to wash out the taste of a bad hotel we stayed at in Ahangama (Insight, ...
(Click here for more posts about restaurants/places to eat in Sri Lanka)Negombo, 1.5 hours from Colombo, is a small tourist town / fishing village with a walkable strip of restaurants on Poruthota Rd (formerly Lewis Place) and hotels around it. Because it's so compact, you can go from kadala karaththe to restaurant to pub and stagger back to your room ...
You Should Coco(Click here for more posts about burgers in Sri Lanka)(Click here for more posts about restaurants/places to eat in Sri Lanka)Paying more than LKR 200 for coffee at a coffee shop seems insane to me. For a few (hundred) rupees more, you can drink a beer on the Galle Face terr
(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. ...
What is serendipity? Just before I got married, I decided I wanted to do a trip around Sri Lanka on my own. I didn't understand exactly why I did but I wanted solitude, maybe to understand myself, maybe to bid my misspent youth a fare thee well, ...
(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 ...
(Click here for more posts about Jaffna Tamil food / cuisine and hotels in Jaffna Sri Lanka) (Click here for more posts about restaurants/places to eat in Sri Lanka) Jaffna's cuisine embraced the peninsula's limitations and evolved in glorious isolation from the Indian subcontinent ...
(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 ...
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 ...
(Click here for more posts about hotels in Sri Lanka)(Click here for more posts about beach accomodation in Sri Lanka)(More photos and video at end of review)Kalpitiya (around 160km from Colombo, 3.5 to 4 hours drive during the day) is the hype capital of Sri Lankan tourism. "Blah ...
Jaffna cuisine is Sri Lanka's only indigenous Tamil cuisine. Just like Sri Lankan Malay food, it started off South Indian hundreds of years ago and evolved into its own unique variant. Shamefully, though, if you ask the average Colombo-ite (Colombo-ian?) to take you for Tamil food, you'll likely end up at a South Indian vegetarian place. ...
(Click here for more posts about hotels in Sri Lanka) I'd forgotten Negombo existed as a place to visit. Maybe it's because it's so close. It takes around an hour to drive there from Colombo and it's just fifteen minutes from the airport. It's like going to Moratuwa for a ...
(Click here for more posts about hotels in Sri Lanka)(Youtube video at end of this post)The Taragala Place Matti Gedaras (mati gedara means clay house in Sinhala) are located right beside the Kalametiya Bird Sanctuary, 214km from Colombo. The name comes from Taragala Rock (not ...
(Click here for more posts about hotels in Sri Lanka)(Click here for more posts about beach accomodation in Sri Lanka)Welle WalauwaAmor Villa was one of those serendipitious discoveries we made while looking to wash out the taste of a bad hotel we stayed at in Ahangama (Insight, if you must know. Godawful place.) We were driving back toward Colombo hoping ...
Stuff Posh People Like: Saivara Fare In Colombo, we're blessed with an abundance of restaurants serving Tamil vegetarian food. The usual suspects like the Mathuras and the Shanthi Vihars litter the streets of Colombo, serving acres and acres of dosa nightly. My favourite such place is a little less well known. It's also not as nice but 1) ...
