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218<br />
The Destination Travel<br />
Clockwise from<br />
left: The old-world<br />
interiors of the<br />
Amangalla hotel in<br />
Galle; a Buddhist<br />
statuette in the<br />
Baths at Amangalla;<br />
a ruined fishing boat<br />
lies stranded on a<br />
beach near Tangalle;<br />
a Buddhist stupa on<br />
the outskirts of Galle<br />
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My<br />
Private<br />
Sri Lanka<br />
From the old-world wonder<br />
of Galle and Amangalla<br />
to the seaside splendour<br />
of Amanwella, <strong>Sean</strong> <strong>Davies</strong><br />
discovers the many<br />
seductions of Sri Lanka in<br />
words and pictures<br />
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The Destination Travel<br />
Overtaking<br />
yet another<br />
tuk tuk<br />
and swerving inches away from an oncoming bus, my driver<br />
grinned, then informed me that this was normal in Sri<br />
Lanka. I was not entirely reassured. I tried concentrating on<br />
the palm trees along the roadside and the expansive beaches<br />
beyond rather than the forbidding road ahead. What I saw<br />
there, however, was no less unnerving. The effects of last<br />
year’s Boxing Day tsunami were still evident, with swathes<br />
of coastline on Sri Lanka’s west coast stripped bare and few<br />
signs of reconstruction.<br />
Before the tsunami, Sri Lanka seemed well on its way<br />
to becoming one of the world’s hot new travel destinations.<br />
Indeed, Amanresorts, the boutique resort group known for<br />
opening stylish holiday enclaves well ahead of the madding<br />
crowd, had opened two resorts in Sri Lanka only a couple<br />
of months after the devastation wrought by the tsunami. I<br />
was in Sri Lanka to see how Amangalla and Amanwella had<br />
weathered their first trying year.<br />
We reached Galle, Sri Lanka’s most historic town<br />
and home to 17th-century Galle Fort, some five hours<br />
out of Colombo. Historians believe that Galle may be<br />
the “Tarshish” of Biblical times – where King Solomon<br />
obtained gems and spices – but it only became prominent<br />
Below: The old<br />
when a Portuguese fleet, bound for the Maldives, was blown<br />
crockery from the<br />
New Oriental Hotel off course and took shelter in Galle’s harbour in 1505. The<br />
is still used today Dutch took Galle in 1640, destroying most traces of the<br />
at Amangalla. Right: Portuguese presence and adding their own fort as a garrison.<br />
Staff at Amangalla’s The great ramparts and massive bastions were not completed<br />
reception area.<br />
until 1715. The ensuing 400 years have seen swashbucklers,<br />
Opposite top: A<br />
traders and colonialists, both Dutch and British, leave their<br />
chamber suite at<br />
mark, but the buildings and ramparts have remained largely<br />
Amangalla. Middle:<br />
Antique silverware. untouched. The fort stands today as a living monument, a<br />
Bottom: The key UNESCO heritage site. It was, in fact, the walls that were<br />
to happiness responsible for saving Galle from the tsunami.<br />
Inside the fort, the pace of life was noticeably more<br />
relaxed. Time seemed to slow as we passed centuries-old<br />
buildings, all clearly in need of renovation. We pulled up<br />
a tree-lined road and stopped outside Amangalla, a whitewashed,<br />
18th-century colonial-style building with curved<br />
arches and balustrades. The building had once been the<br />
New Oriental Hotel. A group of passing school children<br />
giggled as I clumsily emerged from the 4x4 with my camera<br />
equipment. If I was feeling a little self-conscious, the 10-<br />
person waiting party, equipped with bright-white smiles<br />
and icy cocktails, quickly calmed my insecurities. I was<br />
introduced to my personal butler, Janaka, who would look<br />
after me during my stay.<br />
Amangalla’s creators have done their job, combining<br />
the old-world elegance of the New Oriental with modern<br />
facilities and amenities. All rooms enjoy a turn-of-thecentury<br />
colonial feel, with high ceilings, fans, dark wood<br />
furniture and floors. Staff are dressed in elegant white linen<br />
and, as expected from Amanresorts, they are very friendly<br />
and impeccably well-mannered.<br />
Amangalla has four categories of accommodation:<br />
bedrooms, chambers, suites and two garden suites. The<br />
latter are two-storey, 140 sq m houses with original antique<br />
furniture and pool gardens. I was lucky enough to be staying<br />
in a chamber room, with its wood-beamed ceiling, fourposter<br />
king-size bed, shuttered windows, planter’s chair,<br />
writing desk, dining table and pettagama chest perched atop<br />
gleaming teak floors. Only the Bose CD player – playing<br />
golden-era jazz music – and air-conditioning panel betrayed<br />
the illusion of the past. Thankfully, there was no massive<br />
plasma TV to ruin the mood. The bathroom was airy and<br />
luxurious, with twin vanities, a free-standing tub, toilet<br />
and cavernous mosaic shower. Janaka brought me a coconut<br />
offering, which he burnt as a well-wishing, before leaving.<br />
Feeling revived, I stepped out onto the balcony, which<br />
overlooked a garden and the pool, palm trees billowing in<br />
the evening breeze and the ancient fort in the background.<br />
Amangalla’s spa is tastefully integrated into the hotel.<br />
The Baths recapture that bygone era of “taking the waters,”<br />
restoring the body and soothing the mind. The softly lit<br />
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treatment chambers, which lead off five stunning cloisters<br />
from a descending arched hallway, embrace the enduring<br />
charm that permeates the whole hotel. Gentlemen’s and<br />
ladies’ dressing rooms lead to state-of-the-art hydrotherapy<br />
pools with jets that massage and stimulate the entire body,<br />
from the soles of the feet to the top of the head. With<br />
candle-lit recesses, tall ceilings and traditional archways, the<br />
hydrotherapy area is a soothing experience amid ancient<br />
indulgences.<br />
Further complementing past traditions, the Barbershop<br />
and Salon provide gentlemen’s shaving, manicures and<br />
pedicures sedately done from original planter’s chairs<br />
overlooking 200-year-old gardens. The gardens also become<br />
an area of contemplation and peace should you wish to join<br />
daily yoga meditation sessions in the pavilion or simply relax<br />
on the surrounding lawns. Equally seductive is a stroll down<br />
to the pool, to laze about in a designer cabana for the day.<br />
At the sunset lounge, I tried the local tipple, Arrack<br />
sour with coconut and lime, and watched the sun set over<br />
the fort. A candle-lit dinner on the veranda followed.<br />
Amangalla’s two restaurants, the Zaal – or great hall as it was<br />
known in the Dutch times – and the adjacent Dining Room<br />
exude colonial charm, with lofty ceilings, overhead fans and<br />
chandeliers, period furniture, white and royal-blue linen<br />
and table cloths and antique silverware. The staff, dressed in<br />
traditional garb, were friendly and efficient. The menu at<br />
Amangalla complements the setting and is deliberately more<br />
traditional, with a mixture of British, Dutch and Sri Lankan<br />
dishes, ranging from fish and chips, to local Sri Lankan<br />
curries with bitter gourd sambal poppadom and chutney.<br />
Not surprisingly, the local food was excellent but a lot spicier<br />
and drier than the curries of India.<br />
Amangalla provided the perfect base for exploring the<br />
fort and the town of Galle. In an easy hour, I walked past<br />
the Old Gate, with the British coat of arms still engraved<br />
on the entrance, the numerous fort bastions, mosques and a<br />
Buddhist stupa, the old lighthouse and down to Flag Rock,<br />
where you can best catch the sunset over the Indian Ocean.<br />
Inside the fort, the old buildings remain as they have for<br />
hundreds of years. Children played and flew kites in the<br />
grassy knolls behind the sea walls, and, of course, there was a<br />
game of cricket in progress on every expanse of grass.<br />
Through Amangalla, you can organize trips to the scenic<br />
countryside, tea gardens, villages and the area’s wildlife<br />
reserve. Each trip comes with a trusty guide (mine was<br />
Mendis), a picnic and transport in an Ambassador car – a<br />
stalwart of Indian car manufacturing. At the nearby nature<br />
reserve, run and supported entirely by local conservationists,<br />
I spotted a rare serpent eagle and was introduced to all<br />
kinds of tropical flora and fauna. I would have explored<br />
more except for the abundance of leeches. I was told they<br />
would get to me no matter how hard I tried to stop them.<br />
So I spent more time rowing around the reserve’s lake and<br />
talking to Wassantha, the head conservationist, about the<br />
wildlife, the slow and ineffective Sri Lankan government,<br />
which apparently doesn’t care about preserving wildlife,<br />
his British made BSI 1955 motorbike, the tsunami and the<br />
army of party-going charity workers who, he said, didn’t<br />
help much. By the time I’d returned, Mendis had prepared a<br />
picnic on the bank of the lake.<br />
After lunch, Mendis took me to a 2,000-year-old<br />
Buddhist temple site, the Mulgirigala Rock Temple, located<br />
on an isolated, 210m-high rock, which rises almost vertically<br />
out of the surrounding forest. At the base of the rock is the<br />
monk’s living quarters. A fairly steep, stepped path leads up<br />
in stages, passing three platforms along the way, featuring<br />
painted cave temples and Buddha images in varying degrees<br />
of preservation. Admiring my camera, the curator told me<br />
how he lost his own camera, and everything else, in the<br />
tsunami – a poignant reminder of the devastation these<br />
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A Sri Lankan boy<br />
takes a big leap off<br />
Galle Fort’s walls.<br />
Opposite: Buddhist<br />
monks at a<br />
temple in Galle<br />
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Clockwise from top: Galle’s<br />
sleepy streets; an old photo<br />
of Nesa Brohier, owner of the<br />
former New Oriental Hotel, with<br />
her dogs and staff; afternoon tea<br />
on the veranda at Amangalla<br />
The Ghost in Room 25<br />
The site of Amangalla is an<br />
amalgamation of buildings that date<br />
back more than 400 years. In 1684,<br />
the headquarters for the commandeur<br />
was built on the corner of the present<br />
Church and Middle Streets, the site of<br />
what now comprises Amangalla. Later,<br />
it was used as a billet<br />
for British soldiers. In<br />
1865, the buildings were<br />
combined to create the<br />
New Oriental Hotel, which<br />
traded under this name<br />
for 140 years.<br />
Amangalla is home<br />
to a wealth of stories.<br />
The New Oriental Hotel<br />
guestbook, which goes<br />
back to 1905, and<br />
remains in the library<br />
today, is just one source.<br />
A guest, writing about his stay at the<br />
New Oriental, remarked, “This is the<br />
Fawlty Towers of the East … positively<br />
the worst rotting mean dirty hotel I<br />
have ever stayed in.” Another wrote,<br />
“The staff are friendly but a bit clueless<br />
… oh, and stay away from the crab<br />
cocktail; it’s lethal.”<br />
Nesa Brohier had been owner of<br />
the New Oriental from 1960 until her<br />
death a few years before Amangalla<br />
opened. A lady born into high society,<br />
she was holder of the Dutch Order<br />
of the Orange Nassau and, it was<br />
written, a “woman of great physical<br />
attraction.” Moreover, she was, for<br />
half a lifetime, the “grand<br />
old lady of Galle Fort,”<br />
watching over “the<br />
flotsam that ceaselessly<br />
flowed into the hotel and<br />
out.” Brohier was born in<br />
Room 25, and though she<br />
didn’t die in the room,<br />
her ghost haunted it. Or<br />
so it was rumoured. Since<br />
Amanresorts’ renovation,<br />
there have been no<br />
complaints. Or so we<br />
were told.<br />
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people faced. Later, he recalled how the British ransacked<br />
the temple and melted down all the ancient gold statues<br />
when they invaded Sri Lanka. By now, my strong British<br />
accent had softened, and I found myself speaking decidedly<br />
more like a Yank.<br />
Having said my farewells to the staff at Amangalla, I<br />
jumped into the Ambassador and headed off to Sri Lanka’s<br />
other Amanresort, a few hours to the east in Tangalle. On<br />
the way I stopped at the Handunugoda Tea Estate, where<br />
you can sample some of the finest tea in Sri Lanka, then<br />
wander about the plantation watching how tea gets from<br />
tree to tea bag.<br />
Back on the road, I was surprised when we turned<br />
down a single-lane dirt track absent of any signs. We<br />
crept around a few sleeping dogs and passed a line of<br />
trees before entering Amanwella. I noticed first the rich<br />
terracotta hue of the landscape, then the stunning vista<br />
of palm trees and the Indian Ocean welling behind. In<br />
contrast to Amangalla’s old-world appeal, Amanwella is<br />
clearly modernist, with clean lines, geometric shapes and<br />
a classic tiled roof. Designed by Singapore’s Kerry Hill,<br />
Amanwella pays homage to Sri Lankan architect Geoffrey<br />
Bawa, whose simple use of lines and space, combined with<br />
traditional materials such as stone and clay tiles, became<br />
synonymous with Balinese architecture so common in<br />
Asian resorts today.<br />
I arrived at the main guesthouse to meet tall, theatrical<br />
Francois Richli, general manager of Amanwella (and,<br />
at the Handunugoda Tea Estate<br />
you can sample some of the<br />
finest tea in Sri Lanka,<br />
then wander about the plantation watching<br />
how tea gets from tree to tea bag<br />
formerly, Amanjiwo in Central Java). When I asked for<br />
some recommendations about what to do in the area, he<br />
replied, “People come here to do nothing; we’re on the edge<br />
of the world here. It’s sea all the way to Antarctica.”<br />
Each of the 30 beachfront suites features its own private<br />
plunge pool and terrace. The rooms are spacious and soaked<br />
in natural light. The extensive use of glass panels and sliding<br />
doors allows for a panoramic view of the beachfront. The<br />
room’s bathroom is symmetrically laid out, with walk-in<br />
shower, stand-alone bathtub and twin vanities. Even the<br />
toilet faces onto a glass wall so you can enjoy the view even<br />
in the most private of times.<br />
The decor is minimalist and spacious, and the use of<br />
rich-coloured wood gives it the feeling of a safari cabin<br />
rather than a beach house. The plunge pool was perfect for a<br />
dip before breakfast or after a beach swim. If you want a real<br />
swim, the 40m infinity pool by the main restaurant is one of<br />
the most impressive I’ve seen.<br />
From the beach, you can really appreciate the discreet<br />
and harmonious architecture of Amanwella, which blends<br />
inconspicuously into the landscape. The ocean pans out<br />
from an unbroken horizon. The beach was untouched, quiet<br />
and, as far as I could see, for me alone to enjoy. The only<br />
Above: A leafy<br />
hillside at the<br />
Handunugoda tea<br />
plantation. Left: A<br />
tea tasting at the<br />
plantation house<br />
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The view from the pool-side<br />
restaurant at Amanwella<br />
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Above: The terracotta hues and<br />
geometric architecture at Amanwella.<br />
The spacious and sun-lit<br />
interiors of an Amanwella villa<br />
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Clockwise from above:<br />
Fusion food and a<br />
cocktail at Amanwella;<br />
massages can be<br />
enjoyed overlooking<br />
the beach; a bather<br />
rinses off after a swim<br />
in the sea<br />
person I saw was the butler, who had brought towels and<br />
papaya juice for me. Masks, snorkels, fins, boogie boards<br />
and life jackets were readily available. I was there during<br />
the summer monsoon months, however, and the waves<br />
and undercurrent were quite strong – excellent for boogie<br />
boarding but not for relaxed swimming. Walking further<br />
up the cove, I met a group of local teenagers climbing for<br />
coconuts. They invited me to share some of their catch.<br />
That evening, I was sitting on a moon-swept beach<br />
waiting with three turtle conservationists for greenback<br />
turtles to arrive. Sure enough, a small black dot emerged<br />
from the dimly lit sea, inching toward the tree line. We had<br />
to wait for nearly an hour for the greenback turtle to reach<br />
its chosen nesting spot and start digging. A fully mature<br />
adult, she was nearly 1.5m in length. After half an hour of<br />
digging, the turtle began laying eggs. The conservationists,<br />
meanwhile, carefully picked the eggs from the nest, then<br />
measured and recorded them before relocating the nearly<br />
100 eggs closer to the trees, where they would be safer and<br />
more likely to survive.<br />
The next morning, over breakfast on my patio<br />
overlooking the beach, I was told by one of the staff that I<br />
was very lucky to see the turtles. Later, I was treated to a<br />
massage on the patio with the sound of crashing waves as<br />
the soundtrack. It took considerable willpower to leave my<br />
villa and for Uda Walawalle National Park, nearly 30,000ha<br />
of open parkland traversed by streams. Here, it was easy to<br />
spot elephants: they walked right up to the jeep I was sitting<br />
in. If you’re lucky, you can also see langur monkeys and<br />
wild boar. I spotted such rare birds as pied hornbills, painted<br />
storks, bee-eaters, wooly-necked storks and the odd peacock.<br />
The menu at Amanwella noticeably differs from that at<br />
Amangalla. Here, it’s a modern fusion focus. In the evening,<br />
I hired out the beach house, which comes with its own chef,<br />
and enjoyed a grilled seafood dinner on the beach under the<br />
stars. Dinner was accompanied by a celebrated local flutist.<br />
Amangalla and Amanwella float peaceably at either<br />
ends of the high holiday continuum: the former, a rich<br />
cultural experience with old-world appeal; the latter, a<br />
relaxing beachfront paradise at the end of the world. Both<br />
are delightful harbours from the pressing problems facing<br />
Sri Lanka today. In my mind, Amangalla would be an ideal<br />
place for a wedding, with Amanwella the perfect spot for a<br />
honeymoon. Then again, I’ve experienced neither, and still<br />
I found myself leaving Amanresorts, and Sri Lanka, with<br />
considerable reluctance. n<br />
<strong>Sean</strong> <strong>Davies</strong> stayed at Amangalla and Amanwella as a guest of<br />
Amanresorts. The Aman Sri Lanka Experience, a chamber/suite<br />
accommodation for six nights, is US$3,000++ (based on double<br />
occupancy). Valid until Sept 30, 2006. For more information, visit<br />
www.amanresorts.com<br />
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A deserted beach<br />
in Tangalle<br />
The ocean pans out from an<br />
unbroken horizon.<br />
The beach was untouched,<br />
quiet and, as far as I could see,<br />
for me alone to enjoy<br />
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