Dambulla trip - post check in

The Thilanka resort and Spa is lovely lovely lovely! At least my holiday starved body was telling me so.

The pool is long and inviting, but the only drawback is that it starts at the reception area and then stretches to infinity. Lovely place to have the swim. The reception. NOT! But then, that could well be my personal grouse. Other guests would probably be happy to start their splashing in the reception. Other than the unusual place to have a pool, it looks, cool, blue and delicious. Kid was quite happy to sit on the cemented edge, legs stretched out and trail her hand in the water like some underage lorelei.

The rooms comprise of chalet like residences with four rooms to a unit. The path is cemented and flanked on either side by sweeping mango trees with green mangoes peeping through their leafy hiding places. Fallen mangoes dotted the ground here and there and it took all my will power to not pick them up and carry them off, to be later consumed with a dish of salt and pepper! Sigh. I love green mangoes. And yellow mangoes. And all mangoes in between.

I was really thrilled to see herb and salad beds on one side of the garden. That's something you see very rarely in Sri Lanka and almost never at a hotel's premises. I spotted Dill, basil, tarragon and maybe thai basil. I also saw rocket leaves and fresee endive salad leaves. I'm not very good at recognizing these and had to use Google to figure out the name of these herbs and salad leaves, but nevertheless, I was thrilled. In Sri Lanka, despite leafy vegetables available in abundance, my personal complaint is that other than lettuce, we hardly used any other leaves in our salads.

We went to our room and Kid did a mad dance first. She does love staying at hotels. The attached bathroom is very different to the normal bath and shower. You get a kind of dressing room with the washbasin and flanking it are two other tiny cubicles : toilet and shower. Also there is a plunge pool (empty) which the roomboy promised to fill for us whenever we wanted. The bathroom was not a closed area and there was a lovely breeze coming in from the open area.

Lunch was a set menu of lamprais, comropising Yellow rice, brinjal curry, ash plantain, chicken curry, cutlet and boiled and lightly fried egg all wrapped up in a plantain leaf. The taste was nice, with the subtle infusion of the plantain leaf in the food. The good thing was that nothing was strongly flavoured and each curry complemented the others, making for a satisfying meal. Dessert was a lovely ice cream and yoghurt blend sweetened with treacle with small pieces of diced fruit added.

Went back to the room for a short nap and then decided to explore. There is a river (Dambulu Oya) right at the end of the hotel premises, which is about a 15 minute walk from out room. The path is a small beaten track after the cemented path ends and the Kid was grumbling a bit at the distance and the tree roots that made walking a bit hard.

The river looked cold! And it was! The river banks are a bit muddy but the water once you get over the icy shock is so invigorating. We were accompanied by a staff member and he obligingly took pictures of us freezing our sides off in the water. He also warned us to stick to the bank and not to go to the middle of the river or the farther bank as the currents could be quite strong. Getting the kid out of the river was quite difficult, but we finally persuaded her to come out. Poor kid, being a city kid, born and bred, when she first heard the river water gushing, she asked me whether we were near the sea.

After trudging back to the room, we gave the kid another bath and then ordered some sandwiches and french fries. That was our undoing, the sandwiches were excellent and the fries were crisp. The kid ate every last fry and sadly, couldn't do full justice to the excellent dinner afterwards.

Dinner! Starting off was a fresh salad of julienned vegetables and some of the salad leaves I spotted in the garden. Those leaves and herbs were so fresh, they must have been happily swaying in the wind when we checked in! It had a nice citrussy sweetish dressing with a hint of ground coriander. Kid could eat only half of hers, so I helped her to finish it! Next was a clear vegetable soup with diced carrots, potatoes and pumpkin. Subtle flavours and very satisfying.

Having temporarily satisfied our hunger, I was able to look around the dining room. It was a large area on the first floor with fans to cool the place. The walls around were glass and some of the windows were open, and because of the strong cool breezes we didn't have the fans switched on. The dining room was dimply lit and each table had a small lamp illuminating it.

Next was the main course of a choice between roast chicken with a honey flavoured glaze or slices of grilled fish. Hubby took the fish while the kid and I chose the roast chicken. Both kinds were accompanied by a fried rice flavoured with pepper and grated / toasted coconut shreds and a small portion of sauteed vegetables on the side. Dessert was a choice between a fruit platter or chocolate punch. Kid chose chocolate punch, which was at least 3 scoops of vanilla ice cream drenched in lots of warm, thick chocolate sauce. She took one spoonful and gave an ecstatic sigh. There were thinly sliced fruit at the bottom and when she came to that, she quickly surrendered it to me and lost interest. Needless to say, we were completely happy after that meal and couldn't move for a good 15 minutes.

Next post - departure