Sinharaja Vini Villa

We arrived to find out that although confirmed with messages our booking hadn’t been updated and we didn’t have a room! Which wasn’t great having travelled 5hrs to get there and with our children expecting certain things. Also my son was running a temperature and I wanted to make sure he was ok. No apology was made. Communications prior to arriving weren’t easy. We were left wondering what to do but In the end a solution with another nearby property was found, but it wasn’t ideal as was very basic with no air-con for our son. We still ate and took tours at this property. The food and the family were excellent and lovely. I think the tour is overpriced but the external guide used by them was lovely. However, Vini was in my opinion chaotic and hard to pin down for tourmeal times and other things even after messing up the booking. In the end we had to ask for help with transport leaving, as our company had let us down. We agreed an inflated price for an air-con van to get us to our next town only to find out after we left that the aging van didn’t have working air-con and probably never did. Not a drama just another problem. Not a great experience but as I say the rest of the family running the kitchen etc were lovely and great and trying to make us welcome. Especially Dinky who loved practicing her English. Having travelled many miles around Sri Lanka on our month long trip I would say that the area around Sinharaja has to be one of the prettiest, idyllic and cleanest areas, just beautiful. The choices of properties is limited so chose carefully and treble check your booking is correct.

Do not travel to this hotel. Especially if you are a female solo traveler. No WiFi in rooms only communal areas. Isolated spot so you have to get Vini the owner to collect you on a motorcycle and then take you back to the road on a motorcycle. Dangerous owner Vini do not trust him.