Hotels

Back of Beyond Safari Lodge,Yala, is created as a typical park bungalow with a large open verandah, for dining, lounging and sleeping, with a small enclosed 'safe area' for sleeping and keeping your gear. However, unlike the green painted, brick, cement and asbestos park bungalows we have been inspired by the traditional clay wall and thatch roofed homes of the dry zone to give character to our bungalows. Each bungalow is built with mud bricks, thatched with talipot fronds and has a semi cleared garden that merges with the scrub land and jungle beyond. The character of the traditional dry zone homes is reflected in the open 'pila' for storytelling and star gazing. At night, the stars and the rising moon, with the sound of the sea breaking on the rocks hidden below the forested cliff is the perfect end to a long day, and a beginning of a long night of sharing 'Yala Yarns.' And we have gone beyond the park bungalows and traditional homes, to give you crisp linen, airy modern toilets, and a cook that will serve up western as well as Sri Lankan cooking! It's an peaceful home to come back to, after a safari at Yala, or a day out exploring the ancient sites of Ruhuna. To lie on the open verandah as the moon rises over the invisible ocean, is to live for a while, the romance of the remote dry zone villages.