Galle Face Hotel by Greg Clarke

K.C. Khutton shuffles across the marbled foyer of Colombo’s Galle Face Hotel. A thick Victorian-style moustache dominates his face while his brilliant white tunic has red epaulettes.

“Morning sir,” he says, hands joined, and he is dwarfed by the ornately carved front doors. The Galle Face Hotel (GFH) was built in 1864 and claims to be the oldest hotel east of the Suez. Khutton started work here during WWII but nobody, including Khutton, is quite sure how old he is. History has pervaded this hotel and a yet a good part of it might be told in Khutton’s gracefully aged face. Indeed, this enchanting man is a wonderful portent to the GFH.

Spread throughout the foyer are vats of water filled with flowers from the garden’s frangipanis. A stretch of burgundy carpet sprawls passed Dutch colonial furniture to a spiralling staircase. As Khutton escorts me to the check-in desk we pass near an honour roll of celebrated guests. Among them are the names of first man in space, Yuri Gagarin, former British prime minister Edward Heath and Prince Sadruddin Aga Khan.

I am shown upstairs to a room that is unimaginably large. Polished floorboards are Burmese teak. There is a writing desk of course: Arthur C Clarke wrote the final chapters of 3001 - The Final Odyssey in the hotel. The room makes the double bed seem small while the bathroom is almost the size of a ‘single’ in a cheap Paddington hotel. A butler’s office is outside my door.

Next morning I am invited to breakfast in the chairman’s room with the owner of the hotel, Sanjeev Gardiner. Inside the room are timber panels and antiquities befitting a castle. A large red book sits as an ornament atop a pedestal. Before fresh fruit is served, I leaf through the ageing tome. It is a record of guests and state receptions. Some of the names might have been scrawled with a quill pen. There are other volumes too and the American pop-artist Robert Rauschenberg painted one of their pages.

Throughout breakfast I sit next to Lindsay who is in Sri Lanka on business. She first stayed at the Galle Face 10 years ago and this is her first return since.

“It hasn’t changed at all,” she says and talks about falling in love with the place.

The hotel though has undergone extensive renovations, subtly introducing modern comforts.

“If you cannot notice the improvements they have been completed satisfactorily,” says Sanjeev. The Galle Face was once the focus of colonial life and, indeed, the colonial legacy embraced by the hotel is an important part of the country’s history.

But not all parts of the hotel have been given a camouflaged upgrade, however. The standard rooms are small and basic. Like a shuffling concierge-at-large, perhaps their better days have passed.

Yet there might be as much emotion as business acumen invested in the GFH. Sanjeev’s father Cyril bought the hotel in 1960. Sanjeev, who assumed control after his father’s death, has resisted all take-over offers and his father’s legacy lives on. There are staff here who were employed by Cyril (Khutton retired once but was so missed he was asked if he wanted to return). And a percentage of the hotel’s profits are donated to charity.

After breakfast I return to the foyer. Khutton, in his limited English - my Sinhalese was never very good - mentions the visits of Lord Mountbatten and Marshall Tito. I ask him if the hotel has changed. “No change, before same,” he says.

The Galle Face has a baroque-styled banquet room, ballrooms and a chandeliered billiard room. The veranda restaurant overlooks a checkerboard dance floor, coconut trees and the ocean. There are whirring ceiling fans and potted palms. This is a delightful place to sit. Of the veranda Edward Heath wrote, “I was delighted to be able to sit on the balcony watching the moonlight and listening to the waves while we discussed the problems of an international situation.”

Captivated by the surrounds I spend a blissfully lonesome afternoon on the veranda. The soothing crash of ceaseless waves drowns whatever noise the city has conjured. Flashes of lightening and thunderous booms betray the impending monsoon. Ever-building winds constantly flutter the rows of starched tablecloths and though I think rain imminent and sense cold, the day remains warm.

Visitors to Colombo who do not stay at the hotel come to have a drink on the veranda or dine at the restaurant, but such fleeting visits seem hurried. I order a pot of coffee as Khutton returns from his afternoon nap. Day becomes evening. As a cloud filled sky threatens to burst, squirrels scamper across the lawn between blustered trees and seem as indeterminably happy as I.