Wild Coast Tented Lodge

At Palatupana, on Sri Lanka's south-east coast, the scrub of Yala National Park runs almost to the high-tide line, and Wild Coast Tented Lodge sits in the gap between the two. Leopards hunt a few kilometres inland. In front of the pool, the Indian Ocean breaks on a long, empty beach. The lodge is the safari camp of Resplendent Ceylon, the hotel company of the Fernando family behind Dilmah tea, and its rounded canvas cocoons look unlike any other camp on this coast.

History

This shore carries a memory. The Indian Ocean tsunami of December 2004 swept over the beaches of Yala and destroyed buildings close to the sea, and a memorial stands at Patanangala inside the park. In the years that followed, the south-east slowly rebuilt its tourism around the national park, and Resplendent Ceylon chose this beach for the third of its houses, after Ceylon Tea Trails in the hill country and Cape Weligama on the south coast. Like its sisters, the lodge belongs to Relais & Châteaux, and the three are often combined in one trip: tea country first, then the southern beaches, then the wildlife of the dry zone.

Architecture and design

The design is the work of Nomadic Resorts, a studio that specialises in tented and lightweight buildings. Its cocoons are rounded tents of fabric stretched over frames, and their shapes take after the smooth granite boulders that rise out of the Yala scrub, some of them as large as houses. The main pavilion, which holds the restaurant and bar, is roofed with bamboo domes and left open to the sea breeze. Buildings are kept low, so the dunes and the treeline stay in view from the paths, and the camp reads as part of the landscape rather than a block set down on it.

Rooms and suites

Accommodation is in the cocoon tents, spaced out in the scrub and along the dunes. Each has a full bathroom, air conditioning against the heat of the dry zone and a private deck. Some face the ocean, others look inland towards the park. Wild animals move through the camp at night, so staff accompany guests along the paths after dark, and the sounds of the bush carry into the tents.

Dining

Meals are served under the bamboo domes or outside on the terrace. The kitchen draws on the south coast, with seafood, curries and sambols alongside grilled dishes and a European repertoire, and dinners can be set up on the beach or in the bush on request. The bar faces the sea, and sundowners there follow the afternoon game drive.

Location

Yala is Sri Lanka's best-known national park, declared in 1938, and Block 1, the section nearest the lodge, holds one of the highest densities of leopards recorded anywhere. Game drives leave at dawn and in the afternoon in open vehicles with the lodge's naturalists, returning before the gates close at dusk. The park also holds Asian elephants, sloth bears, mugger crocodiles, spotted deer and water buffalo, and a long list of birds, painted storks and peafowl among them. Sithulpawwa, a Buddhist monastery on a rock outcrop founded more than two thousand years ago, stands inside the park. Kirinda, with its temple on a rock above the sea, and the pilgrimage town of Kataragama are both within reach by car.

The beach is for walking. The sea along this coast is usually too rough for swimming, which is why the pool matters as much as it does. Block 1 normally closes for several weeks each year in the dry season, around September, so dates are worth checking before planning a stay. Mattala Rajapaksa International Airport near Hambantota is the closest airport, but most international visitors land at Bandaranaike International near Colombo and drive south along the Southern Expressway, a journey of several hours. For travellers who want a luxury lodge at Yala with the beach on one side and the park on the other, the position is the whole point.