Welcombe Hotel Trincomalee Sri Lanka Review

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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 hotel in Trinco and possibly the island - the Hotel Welcombe. As with all older hotels, it has a great location, perched on a hill high above Trinco town with a great view of the bay. But, again as with all older hotels, we were concerned about the rooms. Iffy plumbing, questionable mattresses, old linen, odd smells, cracked walls: we've experienced some of these problems in older hotels, sometimes all at once.

We arrived at 9PM in the night much later than we expected because I had decided to try the Vavuniya to Trincomalee road instead of the road via Dambulla. This road was reminiscent of the stories my grandfather used to tell about his circuit trips as a civil servant: pitch black, part gravel and part tarred roads, absolutely no shops or any places to eat except at army bases and slow as hell. The whole road was a giant pothole. We were tired as all heck and were ready to sleep in anything.

The Trevene Hotel Nuwara Eliya Sri Lanka Hotel Review - Trevene Bungalow

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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 but, really, how low could we go?

Pretty low as it turned out. The Trevene Hotel  is a place I've always wanted to visit because the bungalow  looked nice, the TripAdvisor reviews were positive and the rate - LKR 2500 room only - was ultra low. But we were a little worried - at that rate, what horrors lay in wait for us?

Amor Villa Unawatuna Sri Lanka Hotel Review - Beachfront Holiday Villa

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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, if you must know. Godawful place.)

We were driving back toward Colombo hoping to find something nice and, just before Unawatuna proper, we passed the gate to Amor Villa. It was one of those high wooden affairs which brought forth visions of the mansions depicted in the old Sinhala teledramas with wizened old men in national costumes and high end bullock carts.

Waterfront Hotel Tissamaharama Sri Lanka Review - Cheap Lakefront Property

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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, being one of those people, can’t take issue with the preference – our lakes are spectacular, gigantic bodies of water and, as you lie next to it with a Rockland Red Rum and ginger beer, you can’t help but say “Thanks, great-great-great granddad for working so hard to give me something so nice to watch at sunset!”

Land's End Bungalow Matara Sri Lanka - Oceanic Delivery Device - Hotel / Holiday Villa

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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 really good beach. But you can't see the beach from the room and you have to cross the (asphalt) road to swim.

Which is why I was excited to be invited to stay at Land's End Bungalow in Matara, run by a friend of my mom's. I was told it was on the beach and that it was in Matara. I didn't need to know anything else; I bundled up my wife in our old rented Mazda and trundled on down.

Expo Pavilion 2 Hotel Jaffna Sri Lanka Review - photos and video at end of post

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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 went in our battered old car, the music alternating between Chandimal’s nonstop baila and Belafonte’s greatest hits.

Yes, everyone is going to Jaffna. But where to stay? Jaffna’s lodging options are currently overwhelmed and, apart from the Duriappah Stadium, the various vishrama shalawas and the YMCA, are all either full, crappy or both.

Most of the hotels in Jaffna barely reach the levels of guest house and the only stars you’ll see are from the dual shocks of the state of the accomodation and the exhorbitance of the price. The only acceptable hotel we found in Jaffna was the Expo Pavillion 2 (Book through Expo Aviation, +94 21 222 3790, +94 11 2576941). It isn’t that great and it’s pretty pricey for what it offers. But, in the land of the blind, the sort of decent hotel is king.

Sethawadiya Hotel Kalpitiya Puttalam Sri Lanka - Review Photos and Video - Setha Wadiya Dolphin View Eco Lodge

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(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 blah Kalpitiya blah blah dolphins blah blah" says everyone from Hi Magazine to Jetwing to Sri Lanka Tourism. As I am a sucker for peer pressure, I went there a few weekends ago.

What you first notice is that, for all the hullabaloo, Kalpitiya is still fairly undeveloped. (The last 40km of road is also pretty awful - but our beloved Marga/RDA is hard at work so this should change soon.) Most of the grand hotel plans are still just twinkles in George Michael's eyes and most of the places Kalpitiya has to stay in are bungalows where you have to take the whole place.

As it was just the two of us, a bungalow was out of the question. So, looking through the Hit Ad magazine - Wijeya's greatest contribution to Sri Lankan entrepreneurs - I found Sethawadiya. It is about 3-4 km from Kalpitiya town. You come to the Al Aksha junction around the 40km post, turn left and pray that there will be people to tell you how to go the rest of the way. You approach Sethawadiya on a road alongside what seems to have been a shrimp pond. I was in quite a bad mood - cursing the road, the car and the directions - but the breathtaking first glimpse of the hotel turned it all around.

Villa Araliya Negombo Sri Lanka Hotel - Review and Video

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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 vacation. Sometimes, Moratuwa can take longer to get to.

But exist it does and, even better, Negombo has a nice, relatively cheap collection of places for eating, drinking and staying. We stayed at the Villa Araliya in Negombo because we wanted something nice but relatively low priced.

Taragala Place Kalametiya Bird Sanctuary Sri Lanka Hotel - Review and Video - Mati Gederas Kalamatiya

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(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 pronounced thaaraa as in duck but thaara as in tar) inside the sanctuary, which you can see from the chalets’ verandahs. Kalametiya, one corner of the RUK (Rekawa Ussangoda Kalamatiya) triangle of biodiversity, is about halfway between Tangalle and Hambantota.

Thirasara Leisure Village Thulhiriya Ambepussa Sri Lanka - Hotel Review - Ghandara Bungalow

If you need a place to stay on your way to Pinnawela (27km), Kurunegala (30km) or Kandy (60km) or you just want a quiet place to hang out for a weekend, you could do a lot worse than Thirasara Leisure Village in Thulhiriya. Actually, you'd have to go pretty far in any direction to find a better place in this area.

Rainforest Edge Kalawana Sinharaja Sri Lanka Hotel Review - Ecolodge / Hilltop Mudhouse

Despite the Sinharaja rainforest being the single most popular destination among local tourists - or maybe because it is? - there are very few hotels there. I've already reviewed Rock View Motel near Sinharaja which is a basic, low-priced experience at around LKR 5,000 full board double. And here is a review of Boulder Garden, a posh but occasionally dank experience, at above LKR 15,000 full board double.

If you're like Goldilocks, Rainforest Edge Sinharaja is like the baby bear. Not too expensive and not too basic.

Tissawewa Grand Resthouse Anuradhapura Sri Lanka Hotel Review - History, Refurbished

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 in Anuradhapura and travel writers throughout the years have praised it. For them, this was the only place to stay. There are many more options now but, for us, Tissa Weva is still the best.

Nilaveli Beach Hotel Trincomalee Sri Lanka Review

We're so 3008, it's so '80s-late
The '80s called and they want Nilaveli (Nilaweli?) back. That decade was full of these types of hotels with matchbox rooms, tiny bathrooms, pools and buffets catering to miserly package tourists. The lobby, entrance and restaurant are typical of all chain hotels, polished cement, Bawa touches and Indonesian style furniture.In the '00s, we have learned better.

But Nilaveli Beach Hotel hasn't. Just like another refurbished '80s hotel, Amaya Reef Hikkaduwa, it has a (relatively) beautiful facade and not great rooms.

Arugam Bay Hotels and Restaurants - Travel Guide

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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 walked along the beach south from Stardust, walking into beach front guest houses and hotels and checking them out.

Where to stay (in beach order):
Stardust - The most expensive. LKR 5,000 for a "Luxury" room to LKR 2,000 for a beach cabana. The beach cabanas were cramped and basic. We didn't check out the rooms as they are in the main building and placed further away from the beach, which is really not what we wanted. +94 63 224 8191.

Galaxy Lounge - Where we ended up staying. All cabanas. LKR 1,500-2,000 per cabana. Big, airy toilets. Probably the nicest we saw there. +94 63 224 8415.

Ranga's Beach Hut - LKR 1,500. Cabanas with shared showers and tiny toilets. Ranga's visitors are very loyal and keep returning. However, we didn't find the accomodation to be that great. His food is another story. +94 63 224 8202.

Watermusic - LKR 1,300. All cabanas - better than Ranga's/Stardust. +94 63 567 1431.

Aloha Cabanas - LKR 1,500. All cabanas with en-suite bathrooms. Better than Ranga's and Stardust but not as good as Galaxy. +94 63 224 8379.

Where to eat:
Food in Arugambay hotels is relatively expensive compared to the room rates. It's why you see the tourists eating at the kottu joints which line the road.

At Galaxy Lounge, meals were about LKR 450-600 per head. The food there was good: they had some innovative dishes like Coconut Roti Pizzas and more basic meals like beef kebabs with rice salad, all of which were done quite well. When we asked, they made us an excellent crab curry.

Ranga's Beach Hut has amazing food, done Jaffna style. Ranga looks like the average Yogi - grey hair, beard, bare chest, belly and sarong. The seating is common and it's a lot of fun to see who you can talk to.



There is a set menu and you sit down and eat. The first night we went, he had string hoppers, poori and paratha with curries and prawns. It's all you can eat except the prawns. We paid LKR 450 per head and were stuffed.

We also went to Gecko. Gecko had hamburgers (LKR 540) on its menu so we ordered those. The waiter asked whether we wanted tomatoes, onions and lettuce on the burger. The burger came and it was good but nothing special and didn't come close to our Holiday Inn burger.

When the bill came, there were 2 salads on it, LKR 250 each, which we hadn't ordered. The waiter told me that the onion, lettuce and tomato ON THE BURGER is considered SALAD and they charge separately for it. I hate it when people nickel and dime you with tiny fees and don't tell you in advance. Just charge 800 bucks for the fucking burger already.

We went to Stardust for dinner one night because we'd heard raves about the food. There were only two other tables taken - both foreigners. After waiting for about 15 min, in full sight of the manageress, we called a waiter over to take our order. He came over, said someone else would take the order and disappeared. We waited 15 min more, in which time the manageress had chatted to both tables but continued to ignore us. Finally, we got up and left. Api kalu nisada? Is it 'cos we was black?

(Click here for Arugambay Travel Guide Part 1 for how to get there.)

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Galaxy Lounge Arugambay Sri Lanka Hotel Review - Arugam Bay

Arugambay is a lot like Hikkaduwa. The accomodation is cheap but the majority of places are holes. They have fancy names (Hillton!) and big, digitally printed signboards but are still holes.

Originally, when we decided to go there for the long, long weekend, I'd booked into Ranga's Beach Hut. When my wife found out Ranga's had shared bathrooms, she had a fit, called me unspeakable names, names a wife should just not call a husband, and booked a place she found on the web called Galaxy Lounge.

When we got there, I had to admit she was right. Ranga's - where we went later for dinner - was a hole, too. But Galaxy Lounge was much, much better.

Halketha Matugama Kalutara Sri Lanka Boutique Hotel Review - Mathugama

Rubber Soul


Kalutara. What is it known for really, other than somewhere to stop, drop in a coin and pray that you get to somewhere nicer? Turns out Kalutara, the district anyway, has nice areas and Halketha - in Mathugama, 75 km from Colombo - is in one of these.

We were looking for somewhere to go and found it in the Sunday Times HIT Ads supplement. Coming off a recent bad experience at Rainforest Eco Lodge, we were wary but when they sent us pictures, we were rearing to go.

Google Map of Sri Lanka Hotel Reviews by Bloggers

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 have a Survey Dept of SL map in your head. This map should give trip planners a little help in identifying a hotel close to where they want to go.

All the reviews I've done are here along with those by other bloggers I've found. It is always there on the top left corner of my blog but I thought I'd bring some attention to it because I'd like get more hotels reviewed by other bloggers onto it.


View Larger Map

Rainforest Eco Lodge Pelawinne Ratnapura Sri Lanka Hotel Review - Recycling Center

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 liked the ad and the location, we'd go. After this last experience, we're beginning to understand where they're coming from.

Rainforest Eco Lodge (Lanka Eco Lodge?) is an ad I used to see all the time and it looked nice. "Eco"-ey, even. Set in Pelawinna Estate, 10km from Ratnapura on the Adam's Peak road, it is 3km from the main road. And this 3km is a treacherous, awful road which you can only go in a jeep or vehicle you don't care about. We opted to take the Lodge provided transportation (an ancient Land Cruiser which costs LKR 1500 both ways). The road was promisingly bad - usually, the quality of a road is inversely proportional to that of the hotel.

So we got to the hotel, shaken and stirred like an indecisive secret agent's martini, and we got our first surprise. Whether you wake up and find next to you, a strange, beautiful woman or a horse's head, you're surprised. This was a bloody nag moment.

Landa House Belihuloya Sri Lanka - Balangoda Sri Lanka Hotel Review - Best of 2008

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In 2008, I have stayed at over 30 hotels. Of some of these - the ones that either impress or depress me greatly - I have written about in this blog. Toward the end of the year, I had to visit Badulla for a presentation. The hotel I stayed at was the one I liked the most for 2008 or any year.

Belihuloya has always been a nice place to stop on the way to the southern hill country for a rice and curry at the beautifully located rest house along the oya (river). This time, though, I found Landa House, through a friend, which is even more beautifully located.

Drifters Narigama Hikkaduwa Sri Lanka Hotel Review

Drifters - in the Narigama part of Hikkaduwa - is close to all the Hikkaduwa clubs, close enough that you can crawl across the road after a good night/morning.

For breakfast, they give you gigantic slices of bread with parippu and pol sambol for breakfast and, even better food wise, is walking distance from the Roti Shop. Nothing like a parippu/pol sambol/paang and chocolate/banana roti breakfast!

What I liked about the place was that a) the owner treats locals the same way as he does foreigners b) they have these wooden beach beds with leather covered mattresses and coconut thatched roofs on top so brown people who aren't as sun-addicted as the white people who sun burn red can lie on the beach also.

Drifters is clean, cheap and basic. So there's no point really waxing poetic about it: rather, I'll show you some pictures of the rooms, surroundings and bathrooms.