So dear readers, why am I starting this blog with a photo of Gordon sitting in our adorable hotel suite in Galle, Sri Lanka, and not with some photos of the wonderful old town. No, it is not because I wanted to show you that there is only one comfortable arm chair which Gordon grabbed the moment we walked in and is yet to leave. I would never be that petty. It is because it is pissing down with rain and there is no way we are leaving our room

We appear to have made a tiny mistake in visiting Sri Lanka in January. Gordon will tell you that  “we” didn’t make the mistake, I did. I, always reluctant to take the blame for anything, will tell you it is the internet’s mistake. I did due diligence and searched on line for “the best time to visit Sri Lanka”

This is what I came up with:

The best time to visit Sri Lanka is from December to March, when the weather is generally dry and sunny, especially in the south and west regions

This is January – slap bang in the middle of those months, and we are in the south west of the island. So what could be better? Almost anything it turns out.

The two hour drive from Colombo to Galle where we are staying looked like this.

Grumbling noises came from Gordon’s side of the car. But we weren’t too worried. Google had said “generally dry”, so a little rain might be expected. Although this was anything but a little rain.

The next morning we threw open our curtains expecting to see a gloriously sunny day

Well that didn’t work.

The grumbling noises increased considerably. But Gordon never has been too cheerful in the morning.

At breakfast, our waiter tells us that there are two types of days in Galle. If the day starts out sunny and really hot, then by mid day it will cloud over and by later in the afternoon it will be raining. The other type of day just skips the sunny morning and cloudy afternoon and goes straight to the rain.

Google didn’t mention that

So guess which day we are starting off with. The grumbling is now really loud.

The final straw is that our lovely hotel goes by the name of the Sun House. They lied. But I guess calling it the Rain House wouldn’t attract too many guests. It is an old Colonial house that dates back to 1860 and once belonged to a Scotsman who made his fortune as a spice merchant. He filled the house with art, wonderful furniture, souvenirs from his extensive travels, and the rich and powerful. Recently restored in 2023 and turned into a boutique hotel with just 8 distinctive rooms, it has once again been filled with antique treasures, including us! We love it

The Sun House is built on the side of a small but very steep hill, and as you can see from the introductory photo, our windows look out onto treetops. They are full of wildlife and we are quite happy watching them while the rain keeps us inside.

A whole troop of monkeys lives in the trees and their favourite game is to leap onto our roof, run across it, seemingly in hob nail boots, and then launch themselves into a tree outside our window. They particularly enjoy doing this at three in the morning

Let’s be truthful here. They are not the most handsome of creatures, they continually scratch themselves in places that should not be scratched in public, they spend an inordinate amount of time picking fleas off themselves and each other which they then eat, and their private parts are not private at all. But they are fun to watch.

The birds on the other hand are much better behaved, beautiful to look at, and sing delightfully from sunrise to sunset.

The enormous lizard that hangs out at the bottom of the trees searching for bugs, does little to entertain. He moves slowly, makes no noise at all and is goddam ugly

There is no doubt that we are entertained, but we hadn’t expected to enjoy Sri Lanka from our room.

Plus we now have one complaint about the Sun House. I chose this particular suite we are staying in because it is the only one with a bath tub – an enormous bathtub – and we both enjoy a bath – preferably with a glass of wine and a good book. And this one certainly seems to be be everything we could have wished for.

But there is one small problem. The Sun House decided in all its wisdom, that it would be energy efficient and oh so very green and have their hot water powered by solar. A wonderful idea, apart from one tiny snag. No one seemed to take into account that they have no sun!.

We tried to run a bath. The water was lovely and hot for about 2 minutes. And then it went cold. We managed about an inch and a half of hot water in the bottom of the bath, and that was it. Not enough to even wet my bum, and certainly not a place to sit with a good book and a glass of wine.

And it turned out, we had used up the entire amount of hot water available for all eight rooms.

Now the grumbling wasn’t only coming from Gordon. The entire hotel was furious.

There is definitely no way we are leaving our room.