Hotel review: Uga Ulagalla, Anuradhapura, Sri Lanka

Accommodations: Like luxury treehouses, the vast resort’s 25 villas are built on stilts and concealed within dense foliage. They’re accompanied by small private pools shaded by a thick canopy of trees that twitch with the to-and-fro of resident primates. Inside, glossy wood floors and net-covered four-poster beds set a tone of colonial grandeur. Floor-to-ceiling windows decorated with mahogany lattice shutters provide glimpses of the monkeys beyond.

Sri Lankan art, oversized lamps and plush sofas make for a cosy lounge space. Mod cons include satellite TV, a Bluetooth speaker, powerful air-conditioning, a kettle and coffee machine, and a minibar stocked with Lion beer alongside soft and stiffer drinks. A small room service menu is available. 

Spacious tiled bathrooms feature walk-in showers and twin sinks set in marble and wooden cabinets; some villas have bathtubs, too. The well-curated collection of amenities includes toothbrushes, razors, lightweight robes and flip-flops.

Despite efforts to keep nature at the door, villas are a little weathered in parts. Vigilant housekeepers brush away bugs, skim leaves from pools and light oil burners to dispel the damp breath of tropical humidity, but they are most effective in their nightly turndown services when they close every single shutter and make the villas feel like snug nests. 

F&B: Uga Ulagalla’s open-air restaurant, Liyawela, occupies the upper floor of the central manor house, overlooking the huge communal pool and the grounds beyond. Transparent nets have been fixed around the parameter to prevent naughty macaque monkeys – notorious food thieves – from getting in, but palm-sized squirrels fit through the holes and provide hours of entertainment with their gymnastic quests for crumbs.

Breakfast options range from sweet and salty banana and cashew nut porridge to fried bacon and eggs. There’s even a spiced Sri Lankan-style eggs Benedict. The must-try is the apappa. Also known as ‘hoppers’, these bowl-shaped pancakes, crisp on the outside with crumpet-like centres, filled with meat, fish or vegetable curry also come with eggs in the based.

More curries and some Sri Lankan interpretations of international staples are on the menu for lunch and dinner, but the most memorable dining experience at Uga Ulagalla takes place out by the paddy fields in the black of night. 

From a traditional Sri Lankan kitchen, erected on a small patch of land between the rice plots, two cooks oversee rotund clay pots on a wood-burning stove. Outside, beneath flickering generator-powered lights strung through the trees, guests are seated in cinnamon stick chairs and attended to by waiters.

The aromatic creations that come from the humble kitchen feature Sri Lanka’s many varieties of rice, and a mix o0f authentic dishes. We feasted on coconut millet, lentil dahl, jackfruit curry, pineapple curry, mutton in spiced gravy, battered bitter ghord, fried okra, garlic prawns and ‘string hoppers’, rice noodle patties, topped with potato curry and coconut sambal. All dishes were served at once, creating a culinary mosaic that covered the whole table. For dessert we discovered the delights of buffalo curd drizzled with local honey. 

Facilities: The refreshing depths of the azure pool stretching out in front of the manor house provides welcome reprieve from Sri Lanka’s intense sun. It’s surrounded by pairs of sun loungers, set at a respectable distance apart for privacy, but with many guests opting to cool off in their own pools, we often had the place to ourselves – until the monkeys gathered en masse. They can be a little intimidating.

A small gym and spa, an archery lawn and a stable of resident horses offer a range of activities. At the onsite Elephant Research Centre, guests and local school children are educated by resident naturalists about a critical issue impacting the animals and the land. Human Elephant Conflict (HEC) results in hundreds of deaths each year for both people and elephants and the Uga hotel group aims to be at forefront of finding a solution. It’s also installing safe drinking water outlets in the surrounding villages. 

Humble homes in various stages of construction, bone-thin buffalo and placid stray dogs all paint a picture of country living. Incongruously neat gardens, cut from the wild jungle landscape, provide villagers with homegrown crops. Other than campaign fliers of a local politicians posted on tree trunks, the landscape is noticeably void of rubbish, which is systematically burned. Everyone we pass waves and bares big happy gap-teethed smiles that reach the eyes. Sakun seems to know everybody, but insists this is how country folk greet everyone, stranger and kin. 

The pinnacle of the trip is a picnic at Nachchaduwa Lake, plumbed by hungry birds and framed by distant hills. A prime location for elephant spotting, evident by the large droppings at the site, we fail to spy a jungle giant. It’s April and they are most prolific from July to August, we’re told. After learning the risks of HEC, this doesn’t bother me and we settle into our folding deck chairs and appreciate the serenity instead. 

This is how a perfect day in Sri Lankan draws to a close. How it begins is in a kayak on Wanamaduwa Reservoir, the vast backwater forming part of the Uga Ulagalla estate, patrolled by egrets, herons, kingfishers and storks, and the occasional waist- deep fisherman. Gliding through is lotus flowers and lily pads feels like sailing through one of Monet’s priceless masterpieces. 

Rates at Uga Ulagalla start from US$48 per night, based on two adults sharing an Ulagalla Pool Villa on a bed and breakfast basis. Return transfers from Colombo to Uga Ulagalla with Red Dot cost US$856. 

For more information, visit www.ugaresorts.com/ulagalla and www.reddottours.com