Airport – customs – plane. We flew with a connection in the UAE. On the Kyiv – UAE leg, not only were we not offered any food (the total flight time was about 10 hours), we weren’t even offered plain water (water on board for ordinary people cost money…). After changing to the second plane in the UAE, we were given 1 sealed cup of water per person. While everything at Kyiv airport was as usual, the terminal in the UAE was simply awful (as we were told, it’s the terminal for transfers and budget travellers). There was a whole crowd of Indian men with reddened eyes, and all the toilets were wet, the water almost ankle-deep. The men were either stoned or high, swaying in a haze almost in a trance, barely moving, scaring us with their vacant stare into nowhere… In the toilets there’s a little box labelled “Narcotic substances are prohibited; put used syringes here”. That put me off the toilet even more than the complete lack of hygiene, especially after those men.
We were checked into the hotel quickly, without waiting for the official 14:00; we only waited until the room was cleaned after the previous guests. The room was clean and bright, with a big bed, a canopy, air conditioning and a fan, a fridge and a balcony (in the building where reception is). Not all the rooms are bright and pretty. My wife and I were lucky, but my colleague was a little less so: he was put in another building that was dark and dirty, with a concrete floor, next to a construction site and with a view of a path. He asked to be moved to our building, and 2 days later he was moved at no extra charge.
The hotel grounds are clean and green. At check-in we were treated to fresh papaya juice. Once during our entire stay the electricity was cut off for half a day — in the worst of the heat it wasn’t very pleasant… Twice the water in our building disappeared for half a day (as I understood, a pump had broken); they tried to fix the problem quickly, but it went as it went.
As for the construction going on next to the hotel: yes, there really is construction there. Our windows looked right out onto the site, with a small piece of ocean and the hotel grounds. In the room, if you close the door, you can’t hear the construction much, and after 23:00 it’s quiet. The only thing is that the construction workers peek into girls’ windows, so it’s best not to walk around naked without closing the curtains.
Breakfasts at the hotel are all the same, and because of the influx of tourists they can’t keep up with bringing out toast and fruit. (We met another couple who checked in with us; they also took dinners. The dinners were just as monotonous, and people went away hungry.) Unfortunately, you can’t opt out of breakfast at this hotel before arrival, so we had to take it. For breakfast: fried eggs, a small salad, a boiled egg, toast with jam, butter, and fruit or fresh fruit juice on alternating days (the juice possibly made from fruit that wasn’t eaten at breakfast the day before), tea and coffee.
A bit more about breakfasts and “our” Russian-speaking compatriots. Folks going on holiday to a foreign country, please learn a few basic English words or at least use a translator app on your phone. It’s really striking when at breakfast someone calls the waiter over and, in Russian (which the waiter doesn’t know at all), starts shouting: “WHERE’S MY TOAST?”, “WHERE’S MY FRUIT?”, “WHERE’S MY JUICE?”, “I NEED A NAPKIN, WHAT DON’T YOU UNDERSTAND? GIVE ME A NAPKIN!!!” — and then looks on in surprise and total bewilderment as to why the waiter does nothing about their request. Imagine you work in a shop in your home town and a Chinese man comes up and starts shouting at you: “在哪裡可以買啤酒？ 你為什麼不告訴我在哪裡買啤酒？ 你是什麼傻子，給我拿杯啤酒!” — well, you get the idea…
Cleaning of the room is only done if you leave your room key at reception.
The staff are smiley and kind and try to help with any question, but don’t expect speed: you can easily wait ages even for a simple request. That’s not the hotel — that’s the country.
The beach has small waves (compared to other parts of Sri Lanka). But again, there are reefs and rocks that are easy to scrape yourself on, and lots of sea urchins that are easy to step on and get a load of spines (which is exactly what happened to our hotel neighbours on their very first day), so be careful — better bring water shoes with you, as there’s nowhere to buy them here. The ocean is warm, the sand is hot, and the water a little further from the shore is clear (near the shore the waves stir up sand). The sun is very strong; at midday it’s better not to be outside, let alone on the beach. The best time for swimming and sunbathing is before 11:00 and after 15:00. It’s better not to swim in the dark, as you can’t see anything under water and it’s easy to step on one of those urchins — and predatory fish come out to hunt…
Across the road from the hotel there’s the hotel café. Right behind the café is the beach with sun loungers. Our Russian-speaking folk claim the loungers as early as 6 a.m., and if you sit in the café until, say, 11:00, 90% of the time nobody shows up on those loungers the whole time… From 11:00 to 15:00 it’s impossible to be outside — it’s simply hell! From 15:00 until evening, as usual, our people’s towels are sunbathing on the loungers again. The food in the café is so-so. Beer costs 400 rupees. We bought beer in a shop and drank it on the loungers, after which we were told we couldn’t do that, and they hung up cardboard signs saying “No outside beer”. So we bought and drank a Sprite, then poured the beer from the cans into the Sprite bottle and drank it without any problems. At the liquor shop, beer cost 190 rupees a can.
Departure is no different from other countries: bus – airport – passport control + bag drop – plane – the UAE nightmare – hooray, we’ve landed. (As on the flight to Sri Lanka, no free food was provided; in fact, on the way back we weren’t even given water.)
Despite all the downsides, we still liked the hotel. It’s calm and quiet. Would I go back to this hotel? I think so — I’d come to this hotel again.
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