Diklande Estate Bungalow
Negombo
Location:
Diklande East Estate, 30km ( 40 min) from the Katunayake International Airport.
Travelling time from Colombo: approximately 1 hour's drive from Colombo city limits on the EO2 Katunayake Expressway. The entire stretch, other than for the last 0.5km village road, is very well surfaced.
Accommodation & Dining:
3 rooms for a maximum of 8 adults. All rooms have attached toilets with hot-water showers. Separate driver’s quarters are available at a nominal rate.
Dining:
Custom prepared Sri Lankan and western meals will be served in the dining area. Drinking water and morning tea & coffee are provided free of charge. Alcohol will not be provided in our premises but guests have the liberty to bring their own.
Staff:
Includes cook and housekeeper.
Activities and excursions:
Wander around a coconut estate, visit a local fair, try out a river bath, explore the fishing villages around Negombo, experience the vibrant Negombo tourist scene etc.
FACILITIES AND SPECIAL NOTES
In brief, we offer:
• 3 bedrooms with attached modern toilets
• Hot and cold water
• Linen, towels, tissue rolls, soap and shampoo
• Mosquito nets
• Fan cooled rooms
• In-house cook and Sri Lankan and western menu options.
• We do not serve alcohol but permit our guests to consume their own at the premises.
• Separate Driver’s quarters available on request, at a nominal fee
We care deeply for our natural and social environment, we try to our best to ‘touch gently’ (see our policy statement), so please bear with us as,
• We do not sell bottled water
• Rooms do not have electric air conditioning
• No TV and other noise generating entertainment
You are welcome to :
- Request for tea, coffee and safe drinking water
- Use our home library and the ‘quiet room’
- Use our Wi-fi in the lobby
ACCOMMODATION AND DINING
This beautifully-restored bungalow has a large, airy sitting and dining area which opens out to the terrace with the swimming pool. All rooms are furnished with beautifully-restored vintage furniture and have a unique feel that combines the bungalow’s colonial-era heritage with sensitivity towards its tropical location. There are three rooms with attached toilets and hot-water showers. The toilet and shower units are totally modern, following the modern Sri Lankan style of open-format bathroom with sunlight streaming in.
All rooms have king-sized double beds, and an extra bed can be installed in two of the rooms. Traditional Sri Lankan food, as eaten at home, or Western meals can be ordered from our menu. Our guests are welcome to discuss any customized variations with our cook.
We do also offer the more relaxed options of dining by the pool or having a barbecue in our kitchen terrace in addition to simply sitting for a meal with the doors wide open in the dining area.
The bungalow is still surrounded by a functioning coconut estate which also has subsidiary spice crops and a dairy farm. Coconut receives far less attention than the glamorous tea estates, but don’t be deceived. The daily routine of mulching, fertilizing, ploughing and weeding happens under the tall palms that seem to stretch endlessly in every direction. If you visit during the picking week, you will witness a scene that is far more interesting than the romance of the winsome tea plucker: think of the height of a coconut tree, place a man with a bamboo pole and curved knife at the foot of it, and watch him wield his weapon to bring down the huge nuts that are over 40 feet above him…without injuring himself, or the fruit. Want to try? Sorry! But you can watch!
Moving a little further on, you can explore the village life in a typical ‘coconut triangle’ village, drop by at the irida pola (Sunday market) where you will probably be the only ‘outsider’, or visit the nearby Buddhist temple where the daily prayers are chanted without noise-polluting amplifiers.
