Riverina Hotel - Steve Wilson. Date of travel: Jul 2007
I'm now back after 2 amazing weeks in Beruwela, Sri Lanka enjoying the Indian Ocean, very cheap food & drink, some incredible wildlife and a cultural experience like nothing before. The cost of living is amazingly cheap - £10 for a 3 course meal for 2, with drinks in the tourist areas! Off the beaten track, it was much less. A 100km train ride was around 75p! Hotel Riverina was everything you would expect from one of the higher end establishments in the resort. The rooms were spacious, cleaned regularly and thoroughly by a team of very friendly house keeping staff - special thanks to Gnanaruthna on rooms 301-312! Top bloke. The aircon was reliable, the mini-bar well stocked, and not too pricey, and room service/coffee shop snacks perfectly acceptable with a decent variation. The rooms were cleaned or checked 3 times a day - a main clean in the morning, a quick check and mini-bar top up in the afternoon, and the bed prepared and mosquito tablets changed in the evening. The flower on the pillow each night was a cute touch. The pool was clean, and all surrounding areas well kept - thoroughly tended each morning and tidied throughout the day. There are loads of Chipmunks running around during the day, and a fair few crows, but both are well behaved and not too intrusive. Also look out for the fruit bats swooping around after dusk! Awesome to watch whilst floating in the pool! The food was excellent - a wide selection served as a buffet/banquet, freshly cooked and well prepared. It is best to get to dinner and breakfast early as sometimes the buffet options will have been sitting since serving starts. Evening meals were 1200 Rupees - about £6 at time of writing. Evening entertainment was variable - the karaoke night was particularly dire, but there is a local live band on Monday nights who do some very good covers, albeit with strong Sri Lankan accents! We also ate at the Terrano Lodge by the river, an Austrian themed restaurant which I thoroughly recommend. Maharaja on the beach north of the river was also very good, along with the Aida Restaurant by the Railway bridge. We will definitely be going back, and despite the 11hr flight it is only 4.5hrs ahead so jetlag is not an issue. Transfer time to Riverina Hotel is about 3.5hrs, but if you get Ralston as a rep, he will make it seem so much less!