Gal Oya Lodge

A little outdoor living is good for the soul (just ask the intrepid crew behind every David Attenborough series), but I thought the management team at Gal Oya Lodge was kidding when they said our trekking guide would hike up Monkey Mountain in bare feet. (Side note: they also referred to him as a naturalist, which Mr Smith momentarily confused with a naturist.) Surely that was taking the whole ‘connecting with nature’ thing a little far? But when we turned up in the grand, open-air reception area at 5:45 the next morning, there he was, ready to take us up the mountain wearing rubber flip flops, which he ditched not 10 minutes into our journey. 

To be fair, it was the first instance of taking things to the extreme that we’d seen so far in Sri Lanka. Yes, there was the journey from Colombo to Kandy, which our driver, Nishshanka, extremely underestimated. (He‘d said it would take approximately three hours. Actual journey time? More than five.) Other than that, everything on the trip so far had been rather un-extreme. 

Sri Lanka is, after all, a nation that many refer to as ‘India-lite’: similar spicy food, minus the Delhi belly; similar culture, minus the culture shock. Gal Oya Lodge in particular feels about as far as you can imagine from the frenetic pace and heaving density of modern-day India. 

Set in Gal Oya National Park – quieter than Yala and Uda Walawe – the lodge is small and luxurious, though in a sensible way that doesn’t feel wasteful (or make you feel Western guilt) in the way that some high-end resorts do. Meals are prepared to order, which means that less food is wasted and by late afternoon each day, we knew precisely what delicious dish we had to look forward to at dinner as we had ordered it shortly after lunch. The chili baked eggs, homemade pasta, egg hoppers, traditional Sri Lankan curries, and steamed tilapia were particularly memorable.

Everything at Gal Oya Lodge is tastefully designed with nature in mind. The grounds are beautiful, with an impressive, open-air lodge, an elevated dining area and a lovely pool acting as the centerpiece. During the day, families and guests congregate here to read, sunbathe and learn about nature from the knowledgeable staff; at night, the board games and cards come out. The lodge and the 10 bungalows and villas feature natural materials, with nary a single-use plastic in sight. Electricity wiring is covered in jute, and the faucets in our open-air bathroom (larger than our living room back in London) are bamboo, with carved wooden elephants serving as taps. 

It’s all very Instagrammable – but, shock horror, there’s no internet, wifi, or mobile signal to post any pictures in real time. Mr Smith and I couldn’t recall the last time we were forced off technology, and though it’s disconcerting at first (no Google, no maps, no texting our catsitter or catching up on gossip back home), we remembered how to have an actual, live conversation.

The rest of our time at Gal Oya was filled with activities and excursions. There was the morning hike up Monkey Mountain, so named because you can descend swiftly through the muddy, humid forest by grasping the perfectly hand-sized tree trunks. Halfway up, I nearly fainted trying to keep up with our barefoot guide – but we still managed to beat the average time of an hour and a half (hooray). 

The staff can also organise birdwatching tours, cooking courses, jeep rides, and can arrange for you to meet a local chief of the Veddas, the indigenous people of Sri Lanka. Intrigued, Mr Smith and I decided to do the latter. The chief, a diminutive man, showed us a cave where his family lived until he was 14. Through an interpreter, he explained some of the hunter-gatherer practices of his people: how they used tree bark to make walls for their huts and used hollowed-out gourds to fetch honey from the treetops. It was a privilege to meet him, and, to our relief, not at all a commercialised experience, though we were disheartened to realise that the Vedda culture is clearly in decline due to the loss of their land and, of course, modern technology. 

We also went on a boat safari, using our binoculars to spy on a pair of jackals, a group of buffalo and three enormous crocodiles (including one who slyly slinked into the water as we watched, giving us an even better view of his size and sheer scariness). We docked the boat to crack open a few beers and observe a herd of elephants as they fed and bathed in the water, the matriarchs throwing their trunks into the air to sniff us out. 

Final proof that nature and fresh air are good for the soul? On our way back to the lodge from the pier, we passed through an area with 3G – and suddenly, the jeep was filled with the tinny beeps and chimes of messages and alerts traveling through the airwaves. It had only been two days without service or signal, and the once-familiar sounds of technology already sounded foreign. We all wryly shook our heads as we realised the spell had broken – after all, who needs Facebook, Instagram and Whatsapp to see and share amazing things when you can experience the real deal?