Way east of Colombo and a few hours’ drive from Kandy, Gal Oya National Park is far from Sri Lanka’s usual tourist trails. This park is a forgotten paradise with a vast lake, where elephants, with trunks raised like periscopes, swim between 47 islands. On a lake larger than some English counties, fishermen’s boats are often powered by sails that were once their wives’ saris.
There’s almost an Attenborough hush in the air as guides, trained naturalists, explain the natural world. Tailor birds who, using dry grass, sew two leaves together with dry grass to create a nest, then provide cobwebs as a soft mattress for the hatchlings. Pelicans scooping up 11 kg of water, and hopefully fish, with their outsize bills. Herons flying back to the nest to deliver a fish to their partner.
Crossed by five ancient elephant pathways, where for centuries elephants have used their trunks to spray themselves with soil as sun protection, Gal Oya is the least visited of Sri Lanka’s National Parks. Yet, it is the only park where you can take a Zambezi-style boat safari in search of crocodiles and elephants. Furtive leopards, far more rarely spotted, are the third member of the park’s Big Three.
For most visitors, Gal Oya Lodge is the gateway to this National Park. Remote and distinctly off-grid, the lodge has no mobile phone reception, no Wi-Fi, no television. It is the ultimate tranquil retreat for a technology detox.
Hotel
Life at this luxurious eco-lodge is different. You will need to phone ahead with your arrival time, whilst you still have mobile phone reception. Gal Oya staff will be waiting to transfer you from the ‘main’ road, through a jungle track to reception. There a cool flannel and lime juice welcome awaits.
Reception is housed in a tall illuk grassed A-frame building, along with a bar, restaurant and a mezzanine library of wildlife guidebooks. Contemporary luxury meets traditional Sri Lankan architecture in a setting that is classed as savannah but feels distinctly like vibrant jungle. An idyllic cool blue swimming pool is framed by flourishing wispy buffalo grass and backed by craggy Monkey Mountain.
Room
Within the Lodge’s 20 acres there are ten very detached and exceptionally secluded suites. Local craftsman used granite and tall teak timbers to support the thatched roofs. Every suite has a terrace looking onto thick jungle where cicadas sing and frogs croak.
Elephants are a key theme of the décor: embossed into the sheets, embroidered onto cushions and providing elephant poo stationery. Away from the bedroom, a separate seating area around a tree trunk of a coffee table has enough room for a gathering of village elders.
Bathrooms are semi al fresco. Brass sinks recall bowls used for cleaning rice and have elephant head taps. Appropriately there are rain fall showers.
Food and drink
At the lodge’s restaurant, the breakfast menu caters for local tastes such as Sri Lanka’s ubiquitous egg-hoppers and chilli-baked eggs as well as more western options.
Menus, printed on elephant poo paper, remind you that this is Sri Lanka where people eat curry thrice a day. If guests tire of several small bowls of curry, rice, vegetables and dahl, then pasta, river fish, salads and vegetarian choices are available.
To do
The Jim Edwards Wildlife Research Centre is adjacent to the Lodge. Its experienced researchers provide the guides for night-time wildlife walks, strenuous walking expeditions to Monkey Mountain’s peak and the boat safaris.
They also show guests how to set camera traps – recently film has captured 20 leopards crossing the site. Research staff identify each cat by their battle scars.
For millennia, this lush landscape had been home to the cave-dwelling Veddha tribe, until the government moved them from the proposed lake’s site into a newly built village in the 1940s.
During a guided walk with the tribe’s chief he explains traditions. For men, marriage to one of their uncle’s daughters was the approved matrimonial alliance. While bee hunting skills were handed down from generation to generation as honey had become a key cooking ingredient.
Boat safari
Guides from the Research Centre accompany guests on the drive to the lake safari, stopping en-route to point out bowerbird nests. Males create nests as part of the courtship ritual, even sticking fireflies into the walls as part of the decoration, but if the female is not impressed she will wreck the nest.
Senanayaka Samudraya Lake is huge. After independence, Sri Lanka’s first president ordered its creation for energy, irrigation and small-scale tourism. As only four boats are licensed to provide boat safaris, each holding a handful of visitors, peace and tranquility are assured.
Pelicans perch on the spectral trunks of a forest flooded when the lake was created in the 1940s. Thousands of grey herons take over entire islands, as maternity wards, with monitor lizards darting between nests in search of eggs.
Stopping for a picnic breakfast or lunch, served from a silver-tiered tiffin carrier, on an island or a lawn sloping to the water’s edge, is a highlight of the safari.
In a nutshell
Gal Oya Lodge provides a unique take on Sri Lanka’s wildlife. It’s the sort of luxurious eco-lodge that you would usually expect to find in Africa. A remote retreat where guests have an opportunity to immerse themselves in nature and to savour tranquillity.
Factbox
Double rooms, including breakfast, begin from US$ 290. This rate includes taxes and service charge.
Address: B527 Sri Lanka
Phone: +94 ( 63 ) 492 9148
Email: info@galoyalodge.com
Website: galoyalodge.com
