Savouring Sri Lanka – Delighted by the resort!

Sri Lanka is one place that was on cards for a few years now. My cousins and I used to plan a trip to Sri Lanka whenever we used to have a group chat over Skype. We’d feel goosebumps at the prospect of finding one common time to meet for some reason that wasn’t a family wedding. Sadly, it never happened. We did some day trips but Sri Lanka remained a dream.

When K and I were planning our trip to India for my brother in law’s wedding in December, K was pretty adamant about going to the north eastern part of India. Blame it on the wonderful dishes that Vinod Dua (We love that guy!) shows on Zaika India Ka. Somehow, I talked him out of it because I don’t want to do 3 day trips to a place where I want to spend like a week atleast. And then K suddenly shouted, “I know where we can go! Sri Lanka! I’ll treat you to a vacation for our first wedding anniversary!”. Now, when he said that, I’d be lying if I said my mind didn’t drool. That’s all I remember. The next thing we had booked our tickets on a Sunday morning even before our coffee. All this was in September.

Fast forward to Nov 28th.

We flew by Tiger Airways because it is cheap(er) and we did not carry a lot of luggage. The tickets were around 340 dollars from both of us for one way. Pretty okay actually. The flight itself is about 4+ hours and we had a good flight by God’s Grace!!!!!!

K read his “Life of Pi” while I buried my nose in a Michael Crichton. And soon, we heard the temperature of Colombo being announced. That feeling when you land in a place you have planned for so long, I tell ya! It is priceless. We felt euphoric. What made it better was the impending India trip following it. It is always a great feeling to have 2 vacations in a row and then fly back home to Singapore for Christmas and New Year!

Now for the big moment. Cue drum rolls please. There was a chauffeur from the resort where we planned to stay at the airport. And guess what he had in hand – our name in big bold letters. What a way to strike off one thing off my wishlist – to have someone at the airport with my name in bold! We will overlook the fact that he had made me a Mister. Luckily, K remained a Mr. as well. Not all that bad, eh?

This gentleman, let’s call him R, is a smiley bloke. He was as delighted to see us as were to see him. Turned out that he was at the airport for 2 hours waiting for our arrival. The resort charged us 3000 LKR for pickup and another 2000 LKR for drop off. We thought it was okay because we were more concerned about making the best use of our time given the timings of our flights. We hoarded our stuff and started our journey to the resort.

We had booked a deluxe room at Amagi Lagoon Resort and Spa . K booked it on Agoda as it looked good and had good reviews. We chose the location because it is very close to the airport (about 15 minutes drive). It had sea view and the rooms generally looked very neat. Neat? Hold your breath! It is one fantastic place. The pictures will speak for it. We usually look for sea view if the place we are visiting has a sea. Ofcourse.

Initially K and I wanted to stay in a tea estate. But that did not work out because of the short duration of our stay and the long travel involved in getting to the estates. At this point I must mention Deeps. Coincidentally, K and I were planning to stay in the same tea factory hotel where Deeps stayed for a part of her trip. unfortunately, it did not work out. She is one darling to have emailed me so many suggestions and put up with my long emails torturing her for details and help in planning the 3 days trip to a place that deserves more. Thank you so much Deeps! I can’t say that enough as you will see in the subsequent parts.

Coming back to our resort, I must say it went beyond all our expectations. Thank you Agoda!

We reached pretty late at night. So after clicking some snaps of the room (I had to ofcourse!), we had a light dinner of soup and sandwich.

And then, we started exploring our balcony. Every room (the resort has 22 rooms) has a balcony overlooking the sea. This was one beautiful area where K and I spent a lot of time having tea, reading e-books and generally chit-chatting when we were not sight-seeing.

There were 2 wooden tables with 2 chairs each and the farthest end there was a concrete sofa kind of thingy. K and I fought for our turns to lie down there.

We slept off after dinner. But when I opened my eyes in the morning, I pretty much dashed out to see how it looked like outside. What I saw was magical. Trust me, this was one of those mornings I would like to wake up to again and again.

The resort has a pathway leading to the lagoon. The pathway is made of wooden planks used to make railroad tracks in Sri Lanka. They have benches overlooking the lagoon where we can have breakfast, dine or just read a book or stare into the waters, They catch fresh fish from there and cook it for the guests.

To be able to look into the sea and know that someone is preparing breakfast for you to savour it by the sea is one splendiferous feeling.

I cannot share enough of these photos. I used to see this man up and about religiously every single day of our stay at around 6. While we were still in our shorts lazing around and tossing the task of brushing first to each other, he used to look ready and upbeat to take on the day. And everyday he had his camera with him.

I used to look at the different colours water would take across different sections. Infact you can see it above. While it would be orange in one section, the next section would tease me with a light violet that would merge into a grey and then lead to a murky green near the foliage.

All I wanted to do was bring a book and my iPod and sit by the sea. I did see a lot of Europeans doing that over the days as well. We later were told that the highest percentage of guests at Amagi are from Europe.

When we walked down to the breakfast area, we were even more awestruck. This was breathtakingly beautiful.

There was even a tree house with a table and chair in it for people to dine.

I did pester K to take a lot of snaps of mine inside it. I have always been fascinated by a tree house. I dream of staying up in one with Calvin and Hobbes if Calvin shares his password. This morning was turning out to be beautiful.

There is something about a lonely tree that stands tall and stubborn. And this lonely boat reminded me of something that I couldn’t really place. I began to love this boat, clicking her away everyday and even cheesily named her Nyx, after the beautiful and pwerful Greek Goddess of the night.

And that’s how still and pristine the water was. I love how the shadow of the foliage’s reflection is seen on the water.

At this point, I must tell you that were sitting right there! How awesome is that? We truly felt like we were in the cradle of nature. It takes a good night’s sleep, a breath of fresh air, lots of greenery, untouched waters, a solitary boat, amazing hosts and awesome company to make you feel on top of the world. Oh, and the tree house ofcourse.

The breakfast was super simple and lovely.

There was dosa (Yay!), grilled potatoes, grilled tomatoes, mint chutney, omelette, fried mushroom and dal cooked with coconut, fruits and cup cakes for me. For K, there was all of this and sausages. The dal was very Sri Lankan in the way the coconut and seasoning of curry leaves was used. We loved it. It was simple and with some freshly brewed coffee, it made our day! This was the breakfast every single day and we never ever complained.

If at all we were hungry, we had lots of nature to feast on anyway.

After indulging in all of this, we set out for Kandy – a day tour with R. Oh and what fun that was!

I can’t wait to write all about it. Stay with me till then 🙂