Roads and Hotels
In this post, I will summarize the roads we took, the hotels we stayed at, and the overall travel experience.
On the day of our arrival in Colombo, we stayed in Colombo Central Business District (CBD). We stayed in a simple hotel named "The Steuart by Citrus, Colombo". Although it is not a fancy or luxurious hotel, it was still very nice! It is an old British colonial building that is converted into an hotel now. The rooms were quite spacious and clean, and the hotel had a very nice restaurant too. As we later experienced everywhere in Sri Lanka, their hospitality and service was top notch! The main advantage of this hotel for us was that it was perfectly located right in the Central Business District, with a couple of iconic restaurants literally next door, and the main sea facing city area just a short walk away.
It was great to explore the CBD area by just walking around. Colombo is a lovely city to walk around. It has nice roads, walkways, and lot of eateries everywhere. By sunset time, we walked to the sea facing area and enjoyed both the sunset views and then the city skyline views after sunset (please see Post #4 below for these skyline photographs). I was very impressed by how nice and well organized the city was, and the overall state of infrastructure and development there. The weather was perfect that January night, and we certainly had a memorable evening in downtown Colombo.
The highlight of the night was dinner at a restaurant called "Ceylon Curry Club". This was literally next door to our hotel. Fantastic food, great ambiance, and very nice and friendly service. We loved the food and the overall experience there. After a nice and elaborate dinner there, we called it a day.
The next morning, we started driving on the first leg of our road trip. Our first destination was Hilton Weerawila, which turned out to be an amazing resort. I loved this place a lot. This was our base for visiting Yala National Park the next morning. The first day drive was on the expressway E01. As I mentioned earlier, this is an absolutely world-class highway.
Driving on E01:
We reached Hilton Weerawila by lunch time, and that gave us plenty of time to enjoy a nice lunch there, then spend the rest of the day chilling in this wonderful resort, walk around in the resort in the evening enjoying the lake views, and then have another sumptuous dinner at one of the many restaurants there. I loved this place so much that I made a mental plan to go back to Sri Lanka just to spend a few days here in this resort.
Our spacious room at Hilton Weerawila (had a nice sit out too with a view of the forest and the lake):
The resort is located on the edge of a large natural lake, and had such beautiful views all around:
Internal walkways within the resort:
View from one of the many terraces:
One of the many sitting areas on the backdrop of the beautiful lake:
Lovely place to spend an evening at:
We took one such corner for us and enjoyed spending evening hours there watching the moon rise over the lake:
View of the lake:
Another beautiful sitting area in the resort:
Random photo of the evening scenes at the resort:
The resort also had multiple restaurants, and each of those had a great ambiance and nice food. Overall we had a great time there.
The next morning we did a safari to Yala National Park (please see Post #3 below for photos from that safari), and they picked us up and dropped back at this resort.
From Weerawila area, which was close to Yala National Park, we then drove to the coastal area, where our first stay was at the famous Mirissa Beach.
At Mirissa, we stayed in a small boutique hotel called "Triple O Six, Mirissa". That name was unusual, but the hotel turned out to be lovely. Small hotel with a few rooms, but the rooms were quite big, well-appointed and comfortable. The restaurant there was very nice and the food, service and hospitality was top class. They had a large swimming pool which formed the main element in the ambiance of the hotel. Overall, it was a lovely hotel with great ambiance and a small scale, homely touch to everything.
Parked at the boutique hotel in Mirissa:
Beach shacks! Mirissa beach is full of beach shacks and restaurants (reminds one of Goa), and we had a nice lunch at one such place:
Our next destination was the famous Taj resort named "Taj Bentota", in a beach resort town called Bentota. The highway E01 was again the fastest route from Mirissa to Bentota, but we decided to take the slower and more scenic coastal road. This coastal road would also take us via the city of Galle, where we visited the famous Galle Fort en route.
On the scenic coastal road from Mirissa to Galle:
Views from the side of the road:
Galle Fort area:
Blue sea water near Galle Fort:
After visiting Galle Fort and checking out the historic buildings and many shops there, we continued our drive towards the resort town of Bentota. This coastal road from Mirissa to Bentota was very similar to our coastal roads in Kerala or Goa. It had lovely sea views from many locations, and it went through small towns with some nice shops and local attractions on the side. We could just pull over and enjoy the sea views at many places. And of course, this road is full of sea view resorts and restaurants all the way. We passed by all sorts of hotels and resorts - from simple basic hotels to fancy sprawling sea view resorts.
Coconut water break on that road reminded me of driving back home (except that these Sri Lankan coconuts were orange in color, and they had a very nice sweet taste):
Another view of our car parked next to a small temple on the side of the road:
The scenic road:
We could not resist frequently pulling over at such locations on this road:
Our two cars together at a handicrafts and masks museum-cum-shop (hand-made wooden masks are famous handicrafts items in Sri Lanka, and this shop had a nice collection of the masks and other wooden items; we ended up buying a lot of wooden items in this shop):
The luxurious beach resort by Taj, "Taj Bentota Resort and Spa" was our home for the next day.
Taj Bentota Resort and the sea view from our room balcony:
Our room at Taj (this was really huge and luxurious):
The sitting area in our room (this itself was very spacious), with a large balcony with good views:
The resort's own beach shack (named very simply as "Shack) offered a nice location and sea views:
View of the resort from the beach:
Parting shot of the ubiquitous orange coconuts, which were indeed very sweet:
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