Maureen & David
England, March/April 2014
What did you like most about Sri Lanka?
Its people were lovely - welcoming, gentle and friendly. It is a very safe and relaxing country. Also its lush scenery and wildlife were most appealing.
What did you like least about Sri Lanka?
No negatives really - except for the homestays (see below).
What is your opinion of your accommodation in Sri Lanka?
We had some wonderful experiences in beautiful rooms/hotels. The Jetwing Lagoon [Airport] was fantastic, a wonderfully designed hotel and 98 Acres [Resort, Ella] was beautiful, too. Buckingham Place [Tangalle] was a little strange - bathroom was too small (and hot) until we were moved to a suite. But the homestays were not a success (see below).
What is your opinion of your chauffeur guide in Sri Lanka?
Kapila was a kind, knowledgeable and caring guide, an excellent driver and a marvellous spotter of wildlife. He organised the safaris and whale watching very well and was most attentive to all our needs.
Any other comments?
We're back safely and I want to thank you for a fantastic trip. Overall we really enjoyed it. However, there are some comments I would like to make and I thought it would be helpful if I typed some feedback as well as filling in your form, which I have just done. My handwriting (along with most of the population) is probably less than fully legible. You may wish to consider sending the feedback form electronically in future so you can more easily read the comments. [It is always an option available, if you prefer.]
On the 'any other comments section' I wrote the following (additional text in brackets):
We felt very strongly that we should have been advised to have a day off between the rigours of climbing Adam's Peak and the Horton Plains walk. It was far too much to expect even a couple of fit pensioners (my husband jogs every day and I'm a regular gym attendee) to do these (walks) on two successive days! We started Adam's Peak walk at 12.45 (on the advice of the hotel manager and our Adam's Peak guide), not 02.30 as per schedule, as it was a Sunday and therefore very busy. After 4.5 hours of walking, including one hour of shuffling forward in a slow moving queue at the top, we gave up and descended (taking another 3 hours , so in all we were walking for 7.5 hours.) We did not see the top, nor sunrise at the peak - most disappointing. (We had only managed to get 2 hours sleep before we had to get up to start the walk, not enough for elderly travellers). So, don't plan the Adam's Peak walk at the weekend as you have to spend at least 8 hours plus doing it (because of the density of people) and do plan a rest day. (Surely your company with your experience should have known this and advised us accordingly). I do wish we had been able to take advantage of the glorious facilities at 98 Acres, a massage etc (which we did not have time for). Such a shame we were not advised to stay there longer.
I would add:
On arrival at 98 Acres, after a second day of walking, this time for 5 hours around Horton Plains, the walk taking us far longer than the designated 3 hours, I could hardly walk another step. We were both seriously stressed and had spent the car journeys post Adam's Peak and Horton Plain fast asleep in the back of the car, thus missing some of the most spectacular scenery en route. I cannot state enough how bad we both felt, it was like army training, not a holiday experience and should never be inflicted on any other older customers. This really was bad planning on your part. Sorry to state this so strongly but it really was an awful experience and could have ruined the holiday had we not put it down to experience and decided to struggle on. We gradually recovered in the next few days but I had a raging headache for the following two days which I never usually experience, so it must have been stress/extreme exercise related. My husband developed swollen glands and a bad sore throat but it happily did not develop into anything more and subsided after a few days, so clearly was also related to the stress of hardly any sleep and two very long and demanding walks on successive days, complete madness.
On the accommodation, I wrote:
We had some wonderful experiences in beautiful rooms/hotels. The Jetwing Lagoon was fantastic, a wonderfully designed hotel and 98 Acres was beautiful too. (I'm so glad we had a De Luxe room as the standard ones were fully booked, it was well worth it and you should perhaps encourage other customers to upgrade too). Buckingham Place was a little strange - the bathroom was too small and hot until we were moved to a suite. (Our original room was large but rather sparse and had chairs with impossibly hard cushions. It would have been impossible to rest and relax in them at all. They were apparently new cushions and not 'bedded in'. It seemed to me like a poor choice of fabrics. Also not having a TV I found very odd. Surely you should be able to opt out, and get it taken away if you don't want it. To design most the room without a TV point seems to be a personal obsession on behalf of the owner, and weird. I wanted to have the option of watching a TV as I'm keen on sport and it was a Formula 1 weekend as well as all the weekend football. Also the design of the hotel's open air bathrooms is a curiosity, they are far too hot in the smaller space of the standard rooms. The hotel was able to change our room to one more suitable, and we were very grateful. Once we had a better room, we relaxed and enjoyed the isolation very much).
But the homestays/guesthouse options were not a success...
Regarding the Little Paradise [Anuradhapura] (or the Living Hell as we dubbed it): to allocate us to a very basic homestay after the wonderful Jetwing Lagoon, one of the finest designed hotels we have ever stayed in, was very poor planning on your part. The arrival day was also planned poorly as we had a very late lunch at 14.30 then Kapila drove us straight to the 'hotel'. The Little Paradise was a backpacker's hostel, quite unsuitable for us. Arriving at 15.00, we saw that there were no facilities except the room which was basic in the extreme, the bed linen and towels were rough, the pillows like stones, the wardrobe was not big enough to take clothes on hangers - and there were no hangers anyway. It was appalling. We just wanted to get out, and asked if there was somewhere we could walk to. It was in a suburb of the city and the hotel 'staff' knew of nothing. As it was we went out anyway and found a local market which was fascinating, but the people at the 'hotel' were clueless as to what advice to offer. The only thing positive to say was that the air conditioning worked well, although it was not on for our arrival so the room was unbearably hot. I wanted to move out immediately but my husband counselled that as we had a full day of sightseeing in the important Cultural Triangle ahead of us, moving hotels would take too much time. He was probably right but it was a dreadful two days of endurance there.
Pathi's place [Hanthana House, Kandy] is a little different. It too is a backpacker's hostel, and not really suitable for travellers like us but it was good to meet him and talk about the company and his wife's food was indeed delicious. The room was much nicer than the Little Paradise, but he should be advised to put in air conditioning and at the very least to install blackout blinds to prevent the sun coming into the south facing rooms and making them very hot and stuffy. The fan offers little respite as the thick top of the mosquito sheet bedcover stops the fan from moving the air around people lying in the bed. The flimsy white curtains only provide minimal privacy no heat shield protection. We were both uncomfortably hot in his home, which is a pity as otherwise it was a lovely experience. When we were in our 20s this more basic non air-conditioned experience would have been ok, but not now when we are retired people travelling the world in greater comfort. I suspect most other customers like us would expect more comforts in their accommodation so I suggest you advise them carefully before recommending a stay in Pathi's house.
So, overall our holiday was great but there were some serious errors of planning that I think you should take into account for future customers. They may well be less forgiving and tolerant than us. My comments are meant to be positive and helpful and please accept them as such.
Thanks once again for making our holiday possible and for all the good plans you put together for us.
On our return to Sri Lanka we will stay at more Geoffrey Bawa hotels (we had a lovely lunch at the [Heritance] Kandalama [Dambulla]) and we'll plan some spa treatments at 98 Acres. No more army-training style walks next time!
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