Travel Reference
In-Depth Information
It's hard not to sound like a tourism brochure when describing how Dobbs redid the
Dutch House or the Sun House, Dobbs's other boutique hotel, across the road. Both are
straight out of a film by Merchant and Ivory. He remained faithful to the colonial pro-
portions of the Dutch House, keeping the verandahs that catch the breezes and filter the
light during the hottest hours of a tropical afternoon. The interior lawn and gardens are
home to a mongoose, who entertained us at breakfast. A pool is discreetly hidden on the
back slope. We could see why so many British couples chose this mansion for destination
weddings, even during the war. At dusk we gathered in the great room for drinks amid pol-
ished antiques and comfortable sofas that were the antithesis of the overdecorated hotels
of London or New York.
During our stay we met other Americans and Europeans visiting Galle, but we were
the only guests at his four-suite hotel, except for election night when an old friend with a
home in the middle of town repaired to Dutch House to be safe in case there were riots
during this first postwar balloting—a reminder of the toll of war.
It was difficult to leave and head out for rougher territory. Dobbs wished us well: “The
roads are rubbish—you'll be pushed and pulled in all directions.”
Our next stop was the hills that cluster in the center of the island. Our route took us
back on the coast road, stopping at an extraordinary three-story-tall Buddha built by Japan
in memory of the people of Sri Lanka who lost their lives in the tsunami. Farther up the
road we saw the small guesthouses—Bright Sunshine Guesthouse, Mali Guesthouse. At
a pizza parlor named Rotty, I talked to the forty-four-year-old owner, H. H. Pluma, who
bemoaned the death of the foreign hippie trade that dipped when war broke out and dis-
appeared after the tsunami. “I had to go work abroad in Dubai to make ends meet,” she
said.
Posters along the highway celebrated the government victory with paintings of Sri
Lankan government soldiers posing with the macho air of a Rambo movie. Homemade
signs offered land for sale, and several promised new casinos for tourists. When we turned
off the main road to climb into the hills, we understood Dobbs's warning. A drive that
should have taken a few hours required an entire day of swirling around potholes and deep
trenches. The scenery, though, was breathtaking. Gentle water buffalo lumbered through
paddy fields. Higher up we were surrounded by terraced tea plantations. After a series of
hairpin turns we saw the mist-covered hills and arrived at Kandy, the former royal capital
and the favored hill station under the British colonialists.
Kandy is centered on a lake, and surrounded by the best of Sri Lanka and Britain:
botanical gardens, a royal palace, the sacred Buddhist Temple of the Tooth and wedding-
cake hotels. There is more than a hint of lost grandeur. We left the city and continued our
climb to Hunas Falls in the jungles above Kandy. We stayed in a Jetwing hotel that was
only one-third full, and in the morning we took our coffee out to the balcony to watch a
troupe of gray langur monkeys swing and somersault in the trees. Then we tried to count
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