Paradise Inn, Sigiriya 🐃 Sri Lanka: Beware overbooking...

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Dec 25
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Paradise Lost & Found 🗺️ A not-so-Serene Experience of Sigiriya, Sri Lanka

Sigiriya, for those unfamiliar, is a destination in central Sri Lanka where history allegedly seamlessly blends with nature and culture.

It sounds utterly idyllic.

But before you get to the soaring views atop that iconic Rock Fortress—the UNESCO World Heritage site that everyone raves about—you must first endure the gritty, unsung business of getting there.

It’s a baptism by bus, really, and our attempt to reach zen at the ironically named Paradise Inn guesthouse was a perfect demonstration that the road to enlightenment is paved, rather bumpily, with local transport and administrative fiascos.

Highlights

The Commute of Champions 🚍 Trading Negombo for the Unknown

We had been residing, briefly, in a guesthouse in Negombo, a coastal spot known mainly for being near the airport.

Our ultimate goal was the Paradise Inn guesthouse in Sigiriya.

The first minor hurdle? Two kilometres to the bus station. Naturally, we procured a tuk-tuk, that three-wheeled chariot of developing nations. It’s the standard opening act to any such adventure. You climb into one, and it feels like you’ve officially pressed the ‘go’ button on the whole ordeal.

All journey’s seem to start with a tuk-tuk

At the bus station, a scene of mild human entropy unfolded. We stood there, blinking, and asked around for the first contraption heading to Kandy. We knew the drill: Kandy first, then Dambulla, then Sigiriya. A two-act play with a lengthy, unscheduled intermission.

There are, thankfully, plenty of buses running between Negombo and Kandy, so finding one didn’t involve a massive palaver. Getting onto it was the simple bit. The experience itself? Well, the vehicle boasted seats, I’ll give it that. Three and a half hours, with what felt like a stop every time someone coughed.

The older buses are quite basic

Kandy bus station, when we finally tumbled out, felt less like a transit hub and more like an organised scrimmage. It was sprawling, it was loud, and the sky had decided to add a light, insistent drizzle to the mix. Just marvellous.

Currency Calibration 💱 The Search for a Decent Wad

A momentary flash of panic seized me. I’d performed the ritual airport currency exchange, naturally—you always want a bit of local cash for the first thirty minutes. However, the next few days involved rural areas and small guesthouses. Attempting to change a few hundred euros in some backwater hamlet sounded about as promising as a summer holiday in Blackpool.

So, out into the Kandy streets we went in search of a Money Changer. Avoiding the more obvious tourist traps, we eventually managed to swap a modest sum for a truly massive wad of grimy, thickly-textured local currency. It felt like holding a brick of old lottery tickets.

We stuffed the newly acquired fortune into various hidden pockets and marched back to the station, ready for Round Two.

The road to Kandy

Sigiriya or Bust 🚌 Onwards to the Lion Rock’s Shadow

The second stage required another bus – this time to Dambulla. From Dambulla, there would be the final, mercifully short hop to Sigiriya.

To sum it all up:

Negombo to Kandy: Approximately 3.5 hours of vibrating.
Kandy to Dambulla: A smooth, but extended, 3 hours.
Dambulla to Sigiriya: The final sprint.

Our plan was simple: two nights at the Paradise Inn, use it as a base to conquer the Lion Rock, the Dambulla Cave Temple, and maybe even a day trip to Polonnaruwa, all subject, of course, to the twin tyrannies of limited time and the ever-fickle tropical weather.

We like to cover our bases. Two weeks prior we’d contacted the owner of the Paradise Inn guesthouse by email to confirm our booking for 2 nights.

Six hours before our anticipated arrival, I sent another message. Just a little electronic nudge. A “Hallo, still coming, don’t give our room to anyone else, thank you” sort of thing.

Maps checked, route planned. We reckoned we could locate the guesthouse on foot from the Sigiriya bus stop. How optimistic we were.

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“Animated” Bus from Dambulla to Sigiriya

An Inauspicious Arrival ⛈️ Welcome to a Storeroom

The Dambulla-to-Sigiriya bus finally deposited us, travel-weary but intact, around half-past four in the afternoon.

So far, (so good?)

After a short trek with our rucksacks, we saw a signpost for the Paradise Inn guesthouse. It was located down a narrow track from the main road. The rain was now coming down fairly heavily.

We encountered the owner’s wife on the porch. She greeted us with an expression that suggested we were perhaps selling encyclopaedias.

I explained who we were, but she apparently didn’t speak much English. She called her daughter to translate. It appeared they had guests who had decided to stay an extra night, and therefore the room we had booked was not available.

As we were to find out later in our Sri Lankan trip, this is not an uncommon occurrence. Many guesthouses overbook if they get the chance, then hope they can fob you off with alternative (invariably inferior) accommodation.

Milton’s Paradise Inn

In this case, the wife offered us an unused empty storeroom with just a bed in the middle. For toilet and washing facilities, she walked us 60 yards through a muddy garden to a small stone outdoor loo and open-air garden shower (and I mean “open”). This, for a reduced price of 1,800 rupees. By now it was dusk and had started to pour down, so our options were rapidly becoming limited.

Ok, so for me it’s just “one of those things” that happen on holiday, and on this trip we weren’t budgeting for luxury, but Lena was not at all happy about the room, or the prospect of wandering around in the mud, in the middle of the night, trying to find the loo . Of course, it would also be impossible for her to wash under this open shower for all the Sri Lankan family and neighbors to see.

In these circumstances, with little option to find alternative lodgings, we accepted the room for one night – on condition that we got the room we booked for our 2nd night. As I was feeling tired, grotty (having spent 8 hours on buses) and by now somewhat hacked-off, I expressed my dissatisfaction to the husband, Milton, when he got back home later.

Just as a literary side-note...

since the owner is called Milton, I think they should rename this place Paradise Regained ...(or Paradise Lost, depending on your particular experience 😉)

So our first night was definitely not good, but things improved from then on.

As others had reported, the food at the Paradise Inn is good, and the room we had booked (when we finally got it) was modern, spacious and clean. If you’re a beer-drinker, stick to juices as you’ll pay 350 rupees a bottle here. They also tend to turn their internet router off after dinner, which means you won’t be able to post your monkey pictures.

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