Sri Lanka's Hotels

This article was first published in the Age on October 15, 2005

Sri Lanka's dubious but picturesque colonial history as Ceylon allows tourists to indulge in fantasies involving whiskey sours, wandering around in white linen, and attractive young men in uniforms. Some of its hotels have a certain post-colonial awareness while others, like The Galle Face Hotel in Colombo, lack any self-consciousness at all.

The Galle Face Hotel is a place so gorgeously weird that it inspired the then-Lord Mayor of Brisbane, Sally Anne Atkinson to gush: 'Seven days at Galle Face Hotel was bliss. To stay longer would be heaven, an exalted state to which I'm aiming.' I can only hope that the second part of the statement was ironic, but the Galle Face Hotel is an irony free zone and Sally-Anne's enthusiasms are etched into a plaque in the stairwell, alongside the praises of as varied a bunch as the Prince Aga Kahn, the Grand Mother Queen of Denmark and 'Film-Star - Trevor Howard'.

For many people the Galle Face will be your first stop in Sri Lanka. You are greeted with a flourish and a bow, by an old man in a white uniform who has a spectacular mustache. Once you get past the massive open air foyer and up the dramatic flights of stairs the rooms themselves are rundown but appealing. I booked into a Deluxe Room, which was similar in size to my entire Fitzroy terrace and had a huge window over Galle Face Green, one of my favorite public spaces in the world- it's up there with the beach fronts at Chennai in India and Bondi in Sydney. When I wasn't looking out the window watching people fly kites, I drank beer on the checkerboard outdoor lounge, and watched the sun set.

My second colonial experience was less enchanting. Nuwra Eliya is the jumping off point for the very beautiful hill country in Sri Lanka but the town itself hasn't got much going for it except that it's refreshingly cool. It was the Hill Station to which English and wealthy Sri Lankans retreated during the hottest months of the year (April and May). I'd been told that the HIll Club was very atmospheric, and it was, kind of. Male guests have to wear ties after 6 p.m. and ladies have to dress for dinner in 'a style that befits the man on their arm'. It wasn't until the seventies that the Hill Club elected a Sri Lankan (as opposed to an English) president , or that 'ladies' could enter through the front door rather than the side. The heads of stuffed animals loom from walls and over fireplaces, and the notice board lists the names of all those club members who haven't paid their dues. Dinner is a set menu costing around US $18 and while an interesting insight into a world long gone -attentive waiters, white gloves, - the food is so-so: fish, stuffed chicken and desserts that seem always (well twice) to include pineapple. I did, however, return from dinner to find my bed turned down and covered hot-water bottles placed in it, an undeniable pleasure.

Ten hours drive from the hills and I was on the East coast in an ochre and blue room from which I could hear the waves crashing and watch the sun rise. The ceiling of my room was corrugated, a tiny rippling ocean, and there was ventilation at both the front and back so the fan could catch the cross breeze. The Stardust Beach Hotel had been run for many years by a Danish couple, the chef Per Goodman and his wife, architect Merete Scheller. He died in the tsunami and Merete, a striking and friendly woman in her sixties, was undertaking the task of rebuilding the cabanas, the restaurant, a yoga and massage room. The main guest house has survived the force of the wave.

To get to Arugam Bay you leave the monsoon behind and head into the glare of peerless blue skies. When my driver gestured at a pile of rubble to his left and said, 'that's your hotel' and pulled up to a single whitewashed building, surrounded by rubble I thought he was joking, but as I got out a young man - the chef who I came to know as Richard - walked up to me. 'Welcome to The Stardust.' The sun was setting and there was a yoga class being held in the ruins of the restaurant. It was so beautiful but damaged, so surreal, I didn't know whether to laugh or cry.

The restaurant had a combination of atmosphere food and price that made it one of the more memorable I've eaten in. Richard, who has worked at the hotel for 14 years, was whipping up seafood paella, Sri lankan curries and spaghetti marinaras in the guest room next to ours until a new kitchen is built. The Stardust is the first hotel I've stayed in where I wanted to stay for weeks, and would like to return to year after year.

At the exquisite Sun House, in Galle, the staff were not so much friendly as deferential and arranged as precisely as the beautiful flower arrangements that were scattered thorough the house - which I found discomforting. They wore white in the day, and red at night. While staying at The Sun House was, in some ways, a peerless experience, it was so perfect that I felt that I was in some pan tropical heaven rather than Sri Lanka. The sitting room at the Sun House is a large room with comfortable couches with barely any walls between it and the Frangipani Garden. There is no restaurant - dinner ( a prix fixe menu, changing every night) is served on the verandah. There are only a few rooms, and one could easily forget there are any other guests at all. The intimacy of the place is incredibly romantic.

In the same price bracket but with 60 rooms rather than 6, is The Lighthouse Hotel. The hotel was designed by the great Geoffrey Bawa, Sri Lanka's greatest modern architect who drew on the island's Dutch, Portuguese and Sinhalese heritage to create buildings without walls that integrate with the environment. The hotel merges with the rocks and beach a couple of kilometers to the east of Galle. The Sri Lankan food here was wonderful. The Lighthouse has a range of eco tours that allow guests to experience the variety of wildlife and natural environments around the island. I spent a very beautiful evening in a catamaran on a lagoon watching flocks of fruit bats stream out to the north while thousands of birds, including egrets in full breeding plumage came into roost.

At the Sun House you are tucked away among Frangipani and Mango trees, while at The Lighthouse you have Whisky sours in the expansive open bar restaurant listening to waves crash on the rocks, and chat to the staff about cricket. And both hotels are among the many reasons why Sri Lanka, despite civil war and the tsunami, is becoming an increasingly popular destination.

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