Taru Villas Mawella

Nobody looks after the beach at the bottom of the garden at Taru Villas Mawella, and the sea has made a fine job of it on its own. In late February it was almost deserted, windswept, the water choppy with the wind, and extraordinarily beautiful. In the hard heat of the south coast, that wind and the cool sea were exactly what an afternoon wanted. Mawella is a fishing village on a curve of bay near Tangalle, and its fishing boats work the bay in the mornings.

Behind the sand, across wide lawns under old trees, stands the main house: a long, low colonial front of white columns and grey-green shutters under a terracotta roof, with four bedrooms and open-plan living rooms furnished with antiques. Our room was in this house, and it was a beautiful room and a thoroughly comfortable one. One of the bedrooms on the property has a four-poster under white netting, glazed doors that fold back onto the veranda, and a framed Fly BOAC poster on the wall urging guests to visit Ceylon, which they already have. Two further houses of two bedrooms each stand in the grounds: Kurumba House, with a pool of its own, and the Pool House, laid out with shared living and dining rooms for a family. The hotel takes children, with cots and rates of its own for them.

The pool we swam in was edged with lawn rather than concrete, a small choice that changes a lot: out of the water and straight onto grass, with the garden running to the rim. Hotels are praised for their staff so routinely that the words have worn thin, so to be plain about it: nobody here could have been kinder.

We went on safari in Yala from here, and it was one of the high points of the trip. Nearer home, turtles come ashore at night to nest at Rekawa, about twenty minutes' drive away, and the rock temple at Mulkirigala is about forty minutes by car. At the house there are cooking classes, and a therapist gives treatments on request. For a night out, Amanwella is nearby, and we ate very well in its restaurant too. Tangalle is twenty minutes by road; take sun cream from home. The only kind we could find there was a brand we had never heard of, we burnt badly, and it took the shine off a couple of days, no fault of the hotel's.

Dinner is laid wherever the evening suits, on the sand or out in the garden. We ordered the house Sri Lankan dinner, two portions, and the kitchen took the order at its word: two of everything, sambals and curries in such quantity that we were defeated well before the food was. It was the best Sri Lankan food we have ever eaten, and by some distance the most.