 Sri Lanka offers smart boutique hotels and villas.   |
It’s just after midnight when we land in steamy, bustling Colombo. Despite the hour, the ancient roads are choked with traffic. Our driver, Ruwan, expertly ducks and weaves, avoiding everything from wandering cows to impossibly laden carts, and finally deposits us at the historic Mount Lavinia Hotel, high on a bluff – a legacy of Sri Lanka’s colonial past.
As I toss and turn under the slow, whirring ceiling fan, my mind groggy from jet lag and the still, humid air, I hear the distant crash of waves upon the shore. The incessant chanting of monks from a nearby monastery infiltrates my dreams.
Come daylight Sri Lanka looked much as it always has, but once I walked Colombo's streets, I realised that changes were afoot. Magnificent colonial buildings, formerly used by Dutch, Portugese and British bankers and diplomats, now house chic homeware stores, art galleries, boutique hotels and department stores styled on London’s Harrods and Selfridges. Gracious old homes are being turned into fashionable retail outlets, and sophisticated restaurants are cropping up in quiet corners of the city.
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