While I was visiting Sri Lanka I stayed for 2 nights at Ratnaloka Tour Inns in Ratnapura. Not your average touristic location because its more located in the inlands of the country. However its a great place to stay at if you need to be in the area or if you're just doing a big tour of the country. The hotel is very nice and luxurious! Everything looks lovely and the staff is very friendly! They have a lot of services for the guests like spa and massage treatments, a gemstone shop (a very nice one!!) and a lovely pool! The rooms are big and clean and the food is great! Also very nice: If you get up early you can spot tea pluckers at work around the hotel! I really recommend this hotel, it's not on a main street or anything, but still the location is nice! The area is very green and beautiful. It's a calm and peacefull area and very pretty! Nice, clean, big rooms, great staff, good food and drinks and great facilities. Very luxurious and if you're visiting Sri Lanka for a luxury and relaxing vacation: This is a good place to stay at if you're passing trough.

Mark and I stayed here for a week for a last-minute Easter holiday in 2005. Mark had been in hospital with severe problems with his elbow for a week and he fancied a holiday to chill out. We flew from Glasgow to Heathrow with BMI, then out to Colombo with Sri Lankan Airlines vie Male in the Maldives. The airline was great - they're partnered with Emirates and the planes are very similar. The Eden is a three and a half hour drive from Colombo - it's not a massive distance but because the roads in Sri Lanka aren't great everyone drives pretty slowly! We arrived at the hotel around eleven at night and when we checked in the staff asked if we'd like to upgrade our rooms for not a lot of money - about $200US for the week. We went to look at the room we'd booked - just the standard one. It was pretty basic - everything was clean and new (the hotel was very badly affected by the Tsunami of December 2004) but it was just a bit bare for our liking, so we looked at the Superior Rooms, which are on the upper floors. We chose this as for not a lot of cash more, you get a 24 hour butler, fruit, snacks and a much nicer room, with a four poster bed, a huge bath, massive shower, and a glorious dark wood floor. Because we arrived pretty late we ordered burgers and fries from room service and they were great - tasty and delivered in a good amount of time. The jet lag hit us and we were awake most of the night watching films on TV, which was great - a number of English language channels, including movie channels and BBCNews24. Breakfast was OK - we were on a half board basis - and provided all the usual stuff, cereal, fresh fruit, juices, and eggs, etc. We usually shared something at lunch time at the pool bar and ate in the main restaurant beside the pool all but our last night. The food there was again OK - buffet style. What was best was Temptations Restaurant, on the second floor. It was a la carte and wonderful - nouvelle cuisine but not in the tiny portions you'd get in trendy restaurants in Europe and the US. Drinks we thought were reasonably priced, although I see from reviews on tripadvisor.com that people think it's expensive now - perhaps prices have gone up. The pool area was really nice - always lots of sunbeds available, either in the full glare of the sun or under the trees. There was a little trio called the BumbleBee Singers who wandered round singing now and then, which was nice but not intrusive. The staff were efficient and were happy to bring drinks to the loungers. We didn't really go onto the beach because we're not keen on sand. But there were beach boys hanging around from sun up until sun down trying to sell tours, t-shirts and drinks. I heard some people in the hotel used them for day trips and were perfectly happy with them, but we were quite content to stay in the hotel for the week. The rep visited us too and was a bit perturbed when we didn't take him up on his suggestion of a day trip to the Temple of the Tooth! We went onto the beach once to see what it was like and take a few photos and once you told the beach hawkers you weren't interested in their wares they tended to leave you alone. The hotel was hit by the December 26th 2004 Tsunami although we learned - miraculously - no-one in the hotel was killed. That's almost unbelievable because it pretty much engulfed the first two floors of the hotel. The main restaurant by the pool was destroyed, and I've since seen videos on YouTube of the wave hitting and the speed is incredible. Less than five months after the tragedy, the hotel was back on it's feet and the only vague trace there'd been such a catastrophic event was a faint smell of damp in the lower couple of floors corridors, but because we weren't staying on them it wasn't an issue. Our butler told us he'd lost his wife and two children in a train crash in the tsunami and he'd gone to find them and found their remains. At least he got that much, and was able to give them a proper burial, which he said he was eternally grateful for. That was the only time the disaster was mentioned. As I said, we didn't venture out of the hotel other than to go back to Colombo Airport so I can't comment on restaurants or shops nearby. That was good because we didn't spend much cash at all! I don't think there was much in the area of tourist value - you'd had to have gone on a full day or two day trip up country to see the interesting stuff, but for us - wanting a quiet week - it was fine. We slept, ate, sun bathed and ate, then went to sleep which was exactly what we needed! Overall the Eden was good. We didn’t use the spa, but I hear it was pretty nice. It isn't a five star hotel - maybe four? Possibly three by UK standards, but the superior rooms increased it's standing in our views. We'd maybe return - if we were in the area, it'd be a safe bet, but I think if we were in Sri Lanka again we'd be touring, so Beruwela would be unlikely to be on the itinerary!

During my trip to Sri Lanka last December/January I stayed at the Blue Oceanic Beach Hotel in Negombo. We were brought to the hotel by taxi from the Airport in Colombo. The drive overthere was lovely already! It was early in the morning and we saw the people in the streets of Negombo getting ready for school/work. The hotel is situated at the beach. The location is therefor excellent! Its easy to find and close to the hotel you can find some small shops and restaurants for your basic need. Also very convenient! The hotel is not very modern and the rooms, especially the bathrooms could do with a good renovation. But other than that the stuff is not very new, it is very clean and the rooms are also quite spacious. That makes up for the fact the rooms are not very modern. My room had a nice balcony wich had a beach view wich was also very nice. The bed is pretty hard, not fluffy or anything, but that seems to be normal around there! Breakfast, Lunch and dinner is served at the dining area near the entrance. For a Sri Lankan breakfast everything was very good. You get to choose how you want your omelet and a cook prepares it for you and brings it to your table. There is a large variety of bread and fruits also. For dinner you can choose from the menu but there are also theme-nights with matching buffets. On Sri Lankan night there was the traditional Sri Lankan food and there were shows by Sri Lankan dancers and there was a Sari contest where tourists could try on Sari's. This was very nice! The Hotel has some facilities as a tourist shop, a spa where you can have ayurveda treatments and a jewelry shop where the Sri Lankan gemstones can be found. Sri Lanka is known for its gemstones. You can make an appointment at the reception if you want to use any of the faciliies from the spa. There is also a pool at the hotel but I couldnt find it at first. When you get out of the hotel on the backside you have to go to the right and follow the path all the way to the right side of the hotel. Thats when I found out the hotel is much bigger than I thought. Here you can find a small pool and next to it you can find a bar where they serve snacks and drinks. My overall opinion on the hotel is very good. The Location is nice because when you walk out of the hotel on the back you are standing on the beach! Its the backyard of the hotel. I didnt swim there but it was nice to see all the colourfull boats come by and see crabs in the sand! The palmtrees everywhere, great place to be. For the location and service the price is pretty good also. This hotel is very populair among the Dutch tourists that visit this part of Sri Lanka. When I was there the place was filled with Dutch people!

Pinnawela orphanage is situated northwest of the town Kegalla, halfways between the present capitol Colombo and the ancient royal residence Kandy in the hills of central Sri Lanka. It was established 1975 by the Sri Lanka Wildlife department.This 24 acres large elephant orphanage is a also breeding pace for elephants, twenty elephants were born since 1984, and it has the greatest herd of elephants in captivity in the world.

Elephant numbers:

• 1975: 5 baby elephants
• 1978: 12 elephants, of those 5 babies.
• 1997: 56 elephants, and in
• 1998: 63 elephants
• 2000 70 elephants,

There are only a few elephant orphanages in the world. Pinnawela has now become one of the bigger orphanages and is quite well known world wide.

In 1978 the Pinnawela Elephant Orphanage was taken over by the National Zoological Gardens from the Department of Wildlife and a captive breeding program launched in 1982. When the zoo took over there were twelve animals five of whom were babies.In time more baby elephants were added to the original herd of five. It was observed that though older females could be added it was not possible to add older males to the herd. 1997 there are 52 animals of which there 10 were babies under 3 years of age. There were five mahouts for the twelve elephants when the orphanage was taken over 1978 and now there are twenty mahouts. This number is inadequate to manage the increasing and growing number of elephants

We arrived in Kandy by train from Ella. The journey was slow but scenic, as the train wound its way through the central highlands.

We headed for an area of Kandy where there were a few cheap guesthouses, and settled on one after a little look around, and managing to get rid of the taxi driver. We ended up picking a slightly grungy place, which wasn't deliberate. Definitely one of the less good choices we made all year, given the options available. The guesthouse had a few cockroaches, and when we had dinner in the guesthouse one evening it was pretty nasty: we had to go to KFC.

The main attraction in Kandy is the temple of the tooth. It's supposed to contain one of Buddha's teeth, but you can't see it because it's in a box in a box in a box in a casket in a casket in a chest in a chest behind a door behind a curtain, or something like that. We can only assume that it's there! The temple itself wasn't really that special. In general we found Kandy to be a little disappointing.

The best thing we did in Kandy was to use it as a base for an excursion to Pinnewala elephant orphanage. We managed to get a bus most of the way to the orphange, hopped off at a street corner, and waited for a minibus to come along which would take us the rest of the way. It all worked very well. The orphanage contains a large number of elephants ranging from very young to over 60 years old. We were able to watch the young elephants being bottle fed. Afterwards the elephants were all walked down to the river for a wash, which is a great spectacle.

Kandy was once the capital of Sri Lanka and it is now still referred to fondly as the heart of sri lanka. Upali took us to the local markets where we sampled sri lankan fruits.. 4 types ofbanana, 4 ty pes of mango and delicious fresh avocado among a few.

The most exciting attraction was the temple of the tooth. The temple is very important to buddhists as it is believed to hold one of the lord buddhas tooth. The casket holding the tooth relic has 7 layers with seven different keys held by 7 different people. the casket is stored behind hefty security and is only open once a day, which we were lucky enough to get a glimpse of the casket. If all seven key holders agree the caskets will get opened for the public to see once a year, but it is often difficult to find a date which they all agree on.

We stumbled across some vegemite in the local food city store in kandy so breakfasts have a whole new dimension now. 

A sacred pilgrimage site for 22 centuries, this cave monastery, with its five sanctuaries, is the largest, best-preserved cave-temple complex in Sri Lanka. The Buddhist mural paintings (covering an area of 2,100 sq. m) are of particular importance, as are the 157 statues.

We got a bus from Kandy up to Dambulla. I think that it took a couple of hours. I can't remember much about the trip.

It took us a while to find somewhere cheap to stay in Dambulla. In the end we found a couple of cheap guesthouses on the south side of town. One was trying to charge quite a lot for a really grotty room with lots of damp and mould on the wall, so we went to the other one. We managed to get some money off because we were staying for three nights. The only downside was that we weren't near the bus station, which meant that we needed to negotiate with tuktuk drivers to get there and back.

Dambulla itself contains a site with elaborately painted Buddhist cave temples, in front of the entrance to which is an enormous gold Buddha. Dambulla is also a great base for visiting the historic sites of Sigiriya and Pollonaruwa, both of which we were able to visit as day trips from Dambulla using public buses.

The cave temples are well worth a visit, and I've inlcuded some photos here to show how magnificent they are. They're towards the south side of town, so we were able to walk there from our guesthouse.

We had a funny experience in Dambulla where we accidentally hitch-hiked back to our guesthouse. We were trying to catch one of the many buses heading down the road out of town, which would go past our guesthouse, but for some reason they all refused to take us. They were prepared to take us longer distances but not just a mile down the road. So, we started walking back to the guesthouse, and every time a bus came past we'd try to flag it down. Eventually one stopped, but what had looked like a bus from the front turned out to be a truck! The drivers were very friendly, though, and gave us a lift to where we wanted to go, even stopping to ask the way!

We found a great place to eat, next to our guesthouse. It was a new hotel which was opening, and they had just opened the restaurant the night we arrived in town. It was the only place near our guesthouse, and the food was excellent, so we ate there all three nights! See the attached review of the Anon Rest.

I had a streaming cold the day we toured Polonnaruwa, which made it quite hard work. We got the bus from Dambulla where we were staying. It was a much longer trip than Sigiriya, but still easily doable as a return trip in the day.

When we got off the bus we were harangued by a couple of blokes with a tuktuk who wanted to sell us dodgy tickets for entrance to the sites. We declined and went to buy real ones from the museum.

There were lots of different things to see in Polonnaruwa: the museum had a lot of interesting exhibits, and the remains of the ancient city are quite extensive, with lots of temples and former dwellings, many of which were quite large and impressive. We ended up doing a lot of walking to get round and see everything we wanted to.

For lunch we'd brought food with us, but needed to buy more bottled water. We had to resort to tossing a coin to decide which of the four identical stalls to buy it from!

Towards the end of the day we gave in and got in a tuktuk to go to the last couple of sights we wanted to see, as they were too fat out of the way. We probably overpaid, but we did get him to take us back to the bus station. When we got there he was quite prepared to give us the journey for free in return for our ticket stubs. He said that he wanted them for his kids who were doing a project at school; I don't suppose it could have been anything to do with the fake tickets that someone tried to sell us at the start of the day! (He even went as far as denying that it was anything to do that, without us so much as suggesting that's what we were thinking!)

It is within the neighborhood of hotel and resort but this is one of the best hotel in this area. The best part of this hotel is that the more expensive room have balcony. The suit also have its own stair case and looking out of the twin building branch. There are swimming pools in the middle where there are bars and restaurant. You can easily have a walk on the beach, but Eden Hotel build similar to oasis in the middle of twin branches of building. All room is looking at the swimming pool and have a beach view. All in all it is a good place to rest and relax. I enjoy a look and the good meal (That maybe because I have not go out in a long time)

We visited Sigiriya as a day excursion from Dambulla. It's only a relatively short bus journey to get there. The bus journey on the way back was particularly entertaining, however.

Sigiriya is a huge rock which was the site of an old palace and fortress. It's an amazing place: the rock is just sitting there in the middle of some predominantly flat land. Very unusual, and you can see why they chose it for building a fortress. It's a bit of a mystery to me how they ever managed to climb it, however. Today there are slightly scary iron staircases which take you up the rock. It's actually not too bad, but I'm not great with heights. I still got up, though.

The two things for which Sigiriya is most famous are the Lion Gate and the Damsels. The Lion Gate these days consists only of two very large lion's paws, one either side of the staircase leading from a point part way up the rock to the palace at the top. Apparently in the old days there was a whole lion here, and you had to pass through the mouth of the lion to ascend the stairs. The size of the paws which remain gives you an idea of how large it must have been. The Damsels are a series of paintings of (scantily clad) women which a painted directly onto the rock, in a position which today is accessible only by a metal spiral staircase which is bolted to the side of the rock. I'm not sure how access to them would have been achieved in the past.

At the foot of the rock there are some water gardens, which are laid out along the approach to the rock. You get a good view of the gardens from the palace at the top.

The bus journey back was in many ways the most entertaining part of the day. We managed to emerge from the site at the same time as the local school was closing, and the bus we'd boarded got fuller and fuller with school children, to the point that we couldn't quite believe how many had fitted on. By the time the bus was at its fullest there were at least five people hanging onto the outside of the doorway. It took ages to get passengers off whenever the bus stopped, because the whole thing had to be emptied and reloaded, in order to let people at the back get off. To round off the whole spectacle, one of the passengers was a man in handcuffs accompanied by two policemen.

Chill out at the Slightly Chilled Guest House. The views from our rooms are picture postcard of Adam's Peak. Our rooms are spotlessly clean. And our warmth and hospitality will be in your minds till the next time you visit.

I am planning my next and third trip to Sri Lanka and once again I will be heading to Adam's Peak where I have become great friends with the owner of this wonderful establishment. It's a great place to relax and they really know how to make you feel welcome. Sri Lanka, Mirrisa beach and this family keep me coming back to Sri Lanka. Also I recommend renting a motor bike to travel around. www.negombo-motorcycles-tour.com is a fair guy. We have checked out all the bike companies and he is by far the best to deal with. Regards spunkywads

This place is a hotel, with an excellent restaurant. I can't comment on the rooms, because we didn't stay there, so this review is about the food. We were staying at a little guesthouse just up the road from the Anon Rest, which is not in the centre of town, so it was our only local choice for food in the evenings. Fortunately the food which they laid on was fantastic. We went there all three evenings we were in Dambulla. The place had only just opened on the day we turned up (so perhaps they were making an extra special effort) but we got a fantastic spread with bowls of all sorts of tasty curried things: one meat or fish dish plus lots of vegetables. It was all really tasty and also interesting. Nothing seemed tailored for foreigners; it all seemed very authentic. I would highly recommed eating here if you're in Dambulla.

The Gal Viharaya (rock temple) and the statue of one of Polonnaruwa's great kings, Parakramabahu, are a few of this capital's memorable sights. This time I have managed to visit this facinating archeological place after  long time.

Among many sites my favourite site was the Gal Vihara (Rock Temple).For my eyes they are the truly  most beautiful Buddha images in Sri Lanka . Four images of different sizes are carved out of a cliff about 56 yards long and falls away gradually at each end.

First Statue-(Sitting Statue)

When you entering to the site your eyes come across the first Buddha statue the sitting image is 15 ft. high and sits on a low pedestal in the front of which are niches containing lions and crossed vajras showing the lingering influence of Tantric Buddhism.When I started to take pictres I couldn't stop firing my camera because each and every angle of the statue made me to take more shots.

Second Statue- (Statue inside the cave)

Next to the first is a cave with pillars carved into the cliff. In the middle of the cave is a high throne with a Buddha image on it flanked by two devas.

Third Statue-(Standing )

Next to the cave is a standing 23ft. tall Buddha with its arms crossed in front of it, one of the few Buddha images depicted like this Because of this unusual hand gesture some have speculated that this is not an image of the Buddha but of Ananda thera grieving for his master about to pass into final Nirvana. This image has a particularly benign and peaceful face.I coundn't take my eyes away from this amazing image for long time.

Fourth Statue-(Recline)

Right next to this is a reclining Buddha which  46 ft. long, a masterpiece of the sculptor’s art.This shows Buddha in the lion posture (sihasana) just as he attained final Nirvana.He rests his head on an elaborately decorated cylindercal pillow. Walking to the far end of this image the pilgrim will notice that the soles of the Buddha's feet are covered with auspicious marks.

These are truly amazing four Buddha  figures manage to convey an emotional power while sustaining the most exquisite serenity. The Liquid flow of the robes and the calmfacial expressions are interpreted the skills of ancient time.

The next place I visited was the beautifully carved statue stands 11½ feet (3.5 metres) in height and carved in to a semi-circular rock. Popular belief is that this is the statue of king Parakrambabahu (1153-1186). This also shows the highest level of craftsmanship of the rock carving engineers of that time.

Sadly I had to shorten my visit only to these two places in Polonnaruwa because of the limited time.