From the translucent ripples of Taru Villas Villu’s non-public plunge swimming pools, a faint name to prayer can usually be heard drifting dreamily into earshot, mingling with the low trill of neon-green frogs, below a wash of bronze sky because the solar sinks lazily into the bush. Lazy afternoons spent wrapped in 10 acres of scenic nature on the resort’s secluded grounds are the perfect tonic to the 5am wake-up calls that mark the start of a bumpy sport drive by Sri Lanka’s largest nationwide park, Wilpattu. After monsoonal downpours, the indescribably lovely park, which encompasses sand dunes, mirror-shine water our bodies, and vibrant red-dirt tracks, smells recent and earthy with delicate kora-kaha (blue mist flowers) clinging to low scrubland bushes, emitting a perfume so whimsically delicate it’s not possible to not be enamoured. Elsewhere, dried-up lion’s ear crops, usually brewed into medicinal tea, and snowberry bushes add to the cinematic really feel of the park the place leopards prowl, and Asian paradise flycatchers flit alongside white rumped shamas.
In shut proximity to the lesser-used Eluvankulama entrance of the park, Taru Villas Villu is an architectural marvel comprising simply seven luxurious chalets the place nature is well known at each flip. Bedrooms are spacious with well-placed mirrors and home windows from the place the pure world will be seen from each angle – an idea used incessantly by the late Geoffrey Bawa (Sri Lanka’s best-loved architect, recognized for his tropical modernism aesthetic). Bathrooms characteristic double vanities and deep-soak bathtubs large enough for 2, in addition to among the most unimaginable tub merchandise, fragranced with cinnamon and orange important oils.
A twice-weekly barbecue, served on an above-river out of doors deck from the place elephants can often be seen, is a spotlight. And it’s value leaving the chalet’s drapes open at evening to observe a whole bunch of fireflies placed on a present by the pool, and later be transfixed by the open expanse of sky because it turns into aglow with the silvery twinkling stars of the Milky Way.
Address: 635/1, Eluwankulama, Wilpattu, Sri Lanka