Fawlty Towers, Sri Lankan Style!

As we left the comedy of Yala, and headed for what we thought would be our final hotel, tsunami monuments littered our journey - their varying heights depicting the height the waters had reached in different places. One cannot begin to imagine the horrors those, caught up in this terrible disaster,  must have endured.

At last, after a week of fascinating travels, we were both looking forward to a week of R&R at an 8 room boutique hotel in the southern coastal resort of Galle.

Highly recommended by the travel company, we could not wait to arrive...that was....until we did!

We were greeted by the manager, clearly not employed for his people skills, who appeared to have two speeds - slow (extremely) and dead! What was I saying about Yala and Fawlty Towers?! This guy made Basil Fawlty look like hotelier of the year.....

On being shown to our' ocean view suite' we discovered a room with absolutely nowhere to unpack - no drawers, no shelves and a hanging space about a foot wide and only two foot long. When we pointed this out we were shown to another 'suite' that didn't even have that.

There was only one chair in the room so it was impossible to sit and have a drink and chat - short of sitting on each others knees - and the room was separated from its 'ocean view' by a balcony which was actually a thoroughfare shared by three other rooms and staff; with no privacy whatsoever, this was hardly the idyllic and exclusive boutique hotel we'd been sold. 

Whilst we didn't expect the Ritz, this place was a joke. Time for action and a word with the manager who looked at us vacantly before announcing that the hotel's sister property was full, although after a few stern words it amazingly appeared to be not quite as full as it had been 5 minutes earlier and a transfer was arranged.

As we sat waiting for our taxi with a beer we knew we'd made the right decision to leave when we shared the bar with a pile of used mattresses, a dusty table and a discarded toenail. Thank God we both have a sense of humour! It made Fergie's toe sucking fiasco look classy!

An hour later a driver arrived - a vision of orangeness in a bright shirt, oversized mirrored sunnies, ripped jeans and mobile clamped to his heavily gelled head.  Too smooth to move...

...but at least he whisked us away from this awful place to the alternative offering which, although a little dated,  didn't appear to have any discarded body parts  lying around and, amazingly, even provided wardrobes for guests.

I was almost dreading what the next few days might bring...