Travel Reference
In-Depth Information
By the time we arrived in Galle, we felt as if we had traveled backward in a time
machine to 1975. Our first stop was Dutch House, a former colonial mansion that was
transformed into the island's first boutique hotel by Dobbs. He was waiting for us at this
eighteenth-century hideaway.
With top ratings and awards from magazines like
Condé Nast Traveler
and
Hip Hotels
Orient
, Dobbs operates in an atmosphere light years away from the mass tourism market
that has nearly died out on the island. His business secret was to attract the top-end tourists
while staying within the local economy, buying local and hiring local. This frugality pre-
served the unique beauty of his hotels while saving him money and buffering him from
the ups and downs of war. Through war and the tsunami, Dobbs said he never lost money.
His high-end travelers were largely Brits and other Europeans who came and went, vaccin-
ated from the war in the cocoon of Galle. Peace is expanding his roster. A South Korean
film crew interviewed Dobbs while we were there. The reporter asked Dobbs: “Koreans
don't know Sri Lanka—what is its charm?”
Where to begin listing the charms of this island? Arthur C. Clarke, the British science
fiction writer and futurist, moved to Sri Lanka for its extraordinary beauty and because it
is “a small universe; it contains as many variations of culture, scenery and climate as some
countries a dozen times its size.”
With peace, all of the island's protected areas are open for scuba diving among the trop-
ical fishes or viewing wild elephants, leopards, sloth bears, langurs and countless birds in
one of Sri Lanka's four large national parks. The cultural heritage is as staggering, with its
seven World Heritage Sites and countless temples. Its literature, dance and arts are part of
the rich South Asian culture—as is its cuisine. But it is not overwhelming, as India can be.
Galle is often compared to Marrakesh. Both are magnificent walled cities lovingly restored
by foreigners and resented by locals.
But Dobbs said it wasn't so much this beauty but its near devastation by the 2004
tsunami that convinced him to settle permanently in Galle and give up his primary home
in Hong Kong. He had been celebrating Christmas in Galle with his mother, his broth-
er Michael and Michael's family when the tsunami's huge waves struck. Michael Dobbs
wrote of the near-death experience in the
Washington Post
, saying that he was swimming
in the ocean when he was surrounded by waves 15 feet high in what “seemed like a scene
from the Bible.” Miraculously everyone in the Dobbs family survived. Geoffrey Dobbs
then devoted himself to helping the island in the aftermath.
To aid the recovery of local tourism, Dobbs started the Adopt Sri Lanka charity that
repaired 125 guest houses, the traditional hostels for Sri Lankan travelers. To promote
new international tourism, especially the high-end tourists, he founded the Galle Literary
Festival, luring authors like Germaine Greer, Alexander McCall Smith and Simon
Winchester to read and mix with locals and tourists. Soon after, he founded the Galle
Film Festival and is planning a Gourmet Galle food festival.
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