Sri Lanka's Cultural Triangle and Hill Country by Jini Reddy
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Despite its beach and boutique hotels scene, fertile landscapes (so green in parts one has the sensation of being torpedoed into a bowl of salad leaves), unexplored hill country and world heritage sites Sri Lanka is often described as an India ‘lite’. Indeed, on arrival in the tear-drop shaped island one is struck by the absence of rubbish, pollution, potholed roads and beggars, all of which point to a hassle-free version of its neighbour to the north (the two countries are separated by 32 km and the narrow Palk Strait). This isn’t, however, indicative of a blandness of character.
There are those horror headlines for a start, fuelled by the tsunami and the ongoing civil war between the government and militant separatist Tamil Tigers that has turned the far north and eastern parts of the Island into no-go zones. Such burdens would crush a less innately sanguine nation, but not Sri Lanka.
This is good news for more robust visitors, who reason rightly, that their chances of their getting caught up in disasters natural or otherwise is slim. But the tragedies have deterred a wave of first-timers from setting foot on Sri Lankan soil. Their absence has left hoteliers and guesthouses outside of the traditionally popular south and west coasts wringing their hands in despair.
This is a shame as Sri Lankans possess a winning civility and dignity. Barring the conflict, Buddhists (who are in the majority), Tamils, Muslims and Christians rub along fine. The literacy rate is high – over 90 per cent – and women enjoy a higher status here than in other developing countries. (They’ve never been subjected to purdah or child marriage for instance, and a third of all Sri Lankan females work.)
Gentle nuances these may be but they subtly colour one’s experience of a country and might explain why the few tourists I met on the ground were slavish in their praise and here for the fifth or sixth time. As for myself, avoiding the clichés of sun and sea and travelling inland (yet far from the trouble spots) to the sparsely populated north-central plains and the Hill Country, to the south of it, over sometimes challenging terrain, I experienced sense of engagement and excitement I’d not expected in a tropical island.
From Colombo airport, I met my driver, and headed northwest to the rural and little visited Puttalam district. Elephants, jackals, water buffalo, mongoose and seemingly whole kingdoms of birds and butterflies make their home in an area awash with lakes, dense forest, villages and small temples. The latter form the basis of excursions from The Mudhouse, a low-impact retreat.
Five star luxury it isn’t: in a forest clearing, adjacent to a lake teeming with the aforementioned birdlife and open land, the Mudhouse is a traditional wattle-and-daub house. What ‘luxuries’ there are come in small, unexpected doses: a four-poster bed, exotic flower arrangements, cocoon-like verandah, library and conical dining hut with teak drawers full of exotic teas. Are these touches worth the absence of electricity, of air con (or even a fan), of hot water ? If you’ve a flexible nature, yes, as the raw solitude, proximity to nature, and ability of staff – always discreet – to anticipate guests’ needs induce a rare, deep torpor, quite unlike the methodically strived-for relaxation that can characterise a stay in a high-end retreat.
Ranjith ‘Kumar’ Kumaatunga, the manager, opened the venture a year ago with sleeping partner Tom Armstrong, co-owner of UK- based tour operator Experience Sri Lanka. The original house is now joined by a handful of guest dwellings, tucked away at discreet intervals in the forest. Currently, there is room for eight, although the 22 -acre property is so off-the-beaten track, (in a country that has yet to mine its seam of eco-tourism gold) there’s rarely more than a pair of guests at a time.
The food is based on local dishes, and the exotic vegetable curries (jackfruit, drumstick, snake gourd, mallang, aka shredded greens), and herbal tonics which began life in Kumar’s large, neat organic garden are supplemented by unusual carbs: kurakkanpittu, served like a Christmas pudding, is a rice-like grain, while eggs come in cup-shaped pancakes called hoppers. This is the food that locals genuinely eat – as opposed to a garlanded chef’s diluted interpretation of what constitutes regional cuisine. Chilli-phobes are politely indulged too.
From the Mudhouse, I made my way to Sigirya, about a ninety minute drive to the east, and home to the Unesco designated Sigirya Rock, a flat-topped, 200m high rocky outcrop set amidst the plains. It’s Sri Lanka’s answer to Ayers Rock and in the fifth century was the citadel of the fugitive king Kassapa.
Vil Uyana, a unique boutique hotel-cum-nature reserve that opened in 2006 on 23 acres of abandoned agricultural is fast becoming a destination to rival the rock. ‘Ours is the first hotel in Sri Lanka to have constructed a wetland system, with lakes and reed beds, and the first to have rooms built within paddyfields,’ says manager Tissa Wickramasuriya.
There are twenty-five villas (or avasas) set in forest, water and paddyfield. The public areas are open to the elements, a range of conservation measures is in place and where possible materials used in the hotel are biodegradable or reusable (plastic is frowned on, for instance, and reeds are used for everything from room slippers to laundry baskets).
The plunge pool in my forest villa was – almost – large enough to do laps in, the ground floor of my forest villa given over to a spa-like bathroom, with a jacuzzi and ornamental pond, and the mod-con-riddled bedroom upstairs vast enough to appease a claustrophobe.
The obligatory gym and spa are airy and light-filled, there’s a formal restaurant, two bars, and a chill-out lounge filled with a selection of wildlife books. Crocodiles, hornets, and snakes, including Russell vipers, cobras and kraits, have been recorded here, though you’re unlikely to spot any of the slithery creatures.
The hotel offers the services of a resident naturalist, and a daily menu of nature-based activities. I went on an elephant safari in Minnerya National park, home to one of the highest concentration of the mammals in Sri Lanka. Frankly, after an hour of trying to spot the creatures in the tall grasses, I was happy to call it a day. If it’s wildlife you’re after, stick to the African veld; it’s far a more atmospheric setting. Far better to treat a stay at Vil Uyana as an indulgent interlude.
You’ll need it, if you decide to explore the Knuckles, a cluster of mountains in the heart of the country that are known their biodiversity and cloud forests, yet virtually unheard of outside Sri Lanka and the preserve of a handful of inquisitive, dedicated trekkers.
I stayed in a mountain village in the northern part of the Knuckles, intriguingly described by local guide Sidantha Kumara as a ‘jungle cathedral’. The village of Walpolamula, population of four, is the focus for a small, diligently managed community tourism project known as the Abode (named after the house that guests bed down in.)
Visits are strictly limited so as to minimise impact, but those who do come get an insight into the lives and culture of the mountain dwellers, whilst the latter benefit from an alternative source of income – a win-win situation, if you’re prepared to rough it. There are no roads here, and the village is accessible via a three-hour scenic uphill trek through thick forest.
The drive to the base of the trail took me past Dambulla, Sri Lanka’s best preserved cave temple, filled with Buddhist murals and statues, and the lively market town of Matale. (Just beyond it is 84-year-old Ena de Silva’s Matale Heritage Centre, on her family estate. A renowned batik artist, and former friend of late architect Geoffrey Bawa, da Silva oversees a classy handicrafts co-operative.)
Carrying the lightest of backpacks (suitcase stored in a trusted village house) the guide and I began our trek, through paddyfields and up into the mountains, the views obscured by a sudden downpour and mist. Walking in the rain with leeches biting at the ankles isn’t an experience I’d recommend to delicate souls, but any discomfort was tempered by liberal swigs of Toddy, provided by a villager who’d joined us.
The ‘jungle cathedral’ was two stone-walled village houses in clearings separated by forest. The hosts, a 60 year-old Grandmother, Bisomeinke, and her 75 year-old husband Wijerathna led me to my accommodation: a spartan, yet far from uncomfortable spare room in their three- room home, which contained a bed, chair and a trunk full of books. (The latter, mainly early 20th-century oddities, are worth a rummage, but best perused in the garden, as the house is dark inside, even in daylight, with candles and a kerosene lamp providing the only light). This is no place for the squeamish – the loo was the bush behind the house and the bath a stream.
Guests share the hosts’ staple fare and the grandmother prepared meals of roti, coconut rice, dried fish, sambal and potato curry (purchased on jaunts down the mountain) on the clay hearth. A fireside chat – the guide translating – turned into an anthropological ‘twenty questions’, the couple revealing their Buddhist-cum-animist leanings and traditional medical practices.
In the absence of a doctor concoctions of herbs and plants are used as first aid. Heated coconut oil, for instance, rubbed on the head, is believed to be a cure for migraine, while the nuts of the Mee tree are crushed and the extracted oil used for wasp stings and joint inflammation. Folk cures when revealed at first hand, and in their natural setting, make perfect sense – less mumbo jumbo and more materia medica.
The morning was spent inspecting the couple’s paddy and wheat fields, ringed by misty mountains; while the grandfather herded water buffalo, the grandmother harvested grain with a scythe. Pastoral scenes such as these aren’t rare, and can be glimpsed in the countryside throughout Sri Lanka, but the combination of trek, cultural immersion and remote setting makes for a singular experience.
Back down the mountain in the blazing sunshine, and it was time to journey south to Nuwara Eliya. This is hill country of a different sort, a holiday resort popular with well-heeled Sri Lankans. Originally founded by the British in the 19th-century, you can still see vestiges of the ‘little England’ of the tropics, in the Georgian houses, church spires, golf course and race track.
Warwick Gardens, an ex-tea planter’s bungalow turned boutique hotel is, like Sigirya’s Vil Uyana, the property of the Jetwings Group. The five-room hotel opened in September 2007 and is on the outskirts of the town. ‘Hiran Cooray, the head of Jetwings initially bought this as his own private house,’ explains manager Mohammed Faris, when I arrive after a white-knuckle drive, along narrow, winding roads in pitch darkness.
Furnishings, including the Murano chandeliers, Jaipur carpets and grand piano are from the family’s private collection. There’s a lounge, formal dining room and library and from the gardens the dizzying views of the valley and surrounding tea plantations come as a shock after the previous night’s arrival, with little but the car headlights visible.
Faris is an unlikely manager, an ex-veterinary surgeon with a PhD in forestry and wildlife conversation, and more boffin than slick front-of-house man. But his pride in the venture is evident when he takes me round the flower gardens, orchard, farm and herb and vegetable plots that supply the kitchen. ‘Sometimes guests like to come and pick their own herbs and leaves for a salad,’ he says.
There’s also a working tea factory on the estate, a scenic walk about a kilometre from the main property, and which guests can tour. Sunny days here lend themselves to walks, birdwatching, badminton and cricket on the lawn, or mountain biking, while there are DVDs and a stash of board games for when the clouds roll in. Take books and an appetite – the food here, both Sri Lankan and western manages to be both comforting and clever.
For a complete contrast in style, I doubled back down the winding roads for the short drive to Kandy, the last royal capital of Sri Lanka (the rule of the last Sinhala king ended with British occupation in 1815). I spent my last days here, at the mad, magnificent Helga’s Folly, in the hills above the city.
Helga De Silva Blow Perera, part-posh caretaker, part- creative dervish – her mother, was an artist, her father a diplomat, her grandfather a politician who helped to secure independence for the then Ceylon – patrols the premises of her ‘anti-hotel’ as she calls it, in trademark Jackie O sunglasses and kimono, a pet Dalmation by her side. All of which could give rise to Cruella de Vil jibes, but for the fact that Helga is a warm – if decidedly eccentric – hostess.
‘Folly’ is an apt name for this gothic wonder. The 36 guest rooms currently in use, plus the rococo lounges are doused in colour. The Buddhist and Hindu murals, monumental dripping candles, giant hanging baubles, fluorescent cushions, gramophones, casually strewn heirlooms and Hall of Fame walls lined with photos of eminent former guests – Sir Laurence Olivier, Gandhi, Nehru et al – either absorb you in their magic, or send you packing.
Helga is well-connected and the contents of her little black book, which she generously shared, made my morning’s dutiful tour of the sights, The Temple of the Tooth (believed to contain a tooth belonging to the Buddha), Kandy Lake and The Botanical Gardens, pale into insignifance.
Through Helga, I meet Waruna Jayasinghe, an artist and one of the city’s top antiques dealer, who specialises in bronzes, jewellery and textiles. A blue sapphire pendant paintings by the late George Keyt and delicate Kataragama scrolls are the sort of the treasures that have far-flung collectors turning up at his shop on the Peradeniya Road.
Jayasinghe also runs Samadhi, a rambling retreat and organic farm, an hour’s drive from Kandy. Set amidst rivers and hills, it attracts a bohemian-posh clientele and ayurvedic treatments, hikes and yoga can be arranged. There’s also a brass foundry, carpentry and antique restoration workshop on the premises, and guests with artisanal inclinations are welcome to get stuck in with the resident craftsmen.
Another of Helga’s protégés , Rahju, aka Michael Perera, a hip half-Norwegian, half-Sri Lankan artist – he looks like John Lennon in his beatnik days – took me to his studio in Gunnepana, a discreet village a few miles from Kandy. He paints in acrylics and specialises in Hindu and Buddhist imagery and Sri Lankan nature scenes, and his striking canvases are popular with Colombo’s politicos.
Rather conveniently, he lives a hop, skip and a jump from the Kandy House, a manor house transformed three years ago into a boutique hotel by architect Channa Daswatte, a protégé of Geoffrey Bawa. The nine rooms are sweetly named after butterflies, and wrap around a courtyard. The gardens features a pool that overlooks paddyfields and jungle, and service is of the bespoke, personalised variety. ‘We cater to the individual,’ says manager Tania Brassey, a sometimes journalist who devised the original Insight Guide to Sri Lanka.
Here as in most of the other properties, you can forget about Wi-Fi, but a week or two of Sri Lankan style living, and even incurably wired types may find themselves succumbing to the most delicious fix of them all – old-fashioned time out.