Welcome to Club Mud!
Rory MacLean tours stunning Sri Lanka – and relaxes in some VERY traditional accommodation
ON T H AT first boozy evening in 1999 we had no idea what we would end up creating,’ laughs Tom Armstrong, The Mudhouse owner. ‘I simply needed a drink.’ ‘People thought we were crazy,’ recalls Ranjith Kumar, his bubbly business partner. ‘Especially when we decided to move out of town and into the jungle. They called us the “Tarzans”.’
Ranjith ‘ Tarzan’ Kumar had been fascinated by traditional Sri Lankan wattle- and- daub houses since childhood. At the age of 11 he’d built his own dried-mud playhouse.
Ten years on, volunteer English teacher Tom had walked into Kumar’s tea shop clutching a tear- stained love letter. Tom’s London sweetheart had dumped him and he was in need of company… and liquid consolation.
Many beers and two decades later, The Mudhouse – a collection of ‘hideaway’ lodges designed by Kumar and tucked away in one of the island’s most secret corners – must be Sri Lanka’s most indulgent and memorable offthe-grid destination.
‘At first we had no master plan, no agenda,’ says Tom. ‘Our start was experimental and based on trust: of ourselves, of the community, of our guests.’
The original mudhouse rose on a donated patch of jungle. Tom, Kumar and their mates mucked in to clear the bush and to shape trunks and beams, using coconut-fibre rope to raise the thatched palm roof above a smooth mud floor.
Their first guests were friends, drawn to Anamaduwa, in Sri Lanka’s north- western jungle, by invitation.
‘ Nothing has changed since those early days,’ says Kumar, explaining how guests are both drawn into the community and left alone to relax beneath the palms. ‘It’s still all about privacy, respect and self- sufficiency. We don’t use the term “ecolodge”. We call it a community tourism venture. We have never been driven by profit.’
None of their now five mudhouses – a three-hour drive north from the international airport at Colombo – has mains electricity or wi-fi; only a few are wired to solar batteries. Hammocks and bamboo bucket seats swing beneath beams and rafters, inviting an appreciation of life. Outdoor showers are surrounded by aloe vera and birdsong.
Guests bicycle between the open-air restaurant, yoga hut and kayak lake along winding jungle paths and over bamboo bridges.
All furniture is made by hand on site. Staff use manpower over machines wherever possible. Parts of the 50- acre property are now cultivated, supplying the kitchen with organic produce during years when rains are good. Food is gloriously Sri Lankan: s pi cy chi cken and vegetable curries, delicious dhal, mango and papaya fruit plates, crepe-like ‘hoppers’ and banana pancakes.
Afternoon tea is brought to guests in their light and airy huts – today curry-leaf tea with ginger jaggery (cane sugar), tomorrow a smoky herbal blend picked for its medicinal and Ayurvedic properties. Leftovers are fed to the animals and exotic birds, ensuring nothing goes to waste.
‘We put huge care and attention into every booking,’ says Tom, explaining that any profit is pumped back into the community. ‘It’s obvious to guests where their money goes.’
ALMOST by chance, the pair’s passion has helped to revive traditional skills, and in the process revitalised the rural community. Guests can take excursions to the nearby ancient capital Yapahuwa, or the vast Wilpattu National Park, home to leopards,
elephants, crocodiles and sloth bears. Wilpattu was closed for the best part of 30 years due to the country’s 26-year civil war that ended in 2009. The Tamil Tigers used it as a jungle base for hit-and-run attacks.
Today many of its visitors choose to spend a night at the park’s edge under canvas at the Big Game Camp. Others either start or end their holiday at Palagama Beach, a resort on the Kalpitiya peninsula created around the converted holiday home of British architect Cecil Balmond.
In its luxury thatched villas and cabanas, beneath the palm fronds or beside the beachside infinity pool, guests plan their next dolphin-watching expedition or holistic massage.
Another of Sri Lanka’s most memorable destinations is the Rosyth Estate House, perched amid lush forest in the low tea country near Kandy. Visitors step on to its wide veranda, gaze across the distant hills and fall into the warm embrace of relaxed but effervescent hosts Farzana and Neil Dobbs. Farzana lived on the family estate as a child, returning seven years ago with husband Neil after he quit his high-flying City career in the UK.
Together they restored Rosyth’ s abandoned 1926 plantation bungalow, transforming it into a boutique residence and creating an authentic estate experience at the heart of a revitalised tea and rubber plantation.
‘It can be a very busy stay at Rosyth, if you want it to be,’ said Farzana. Newly arrived guests are treated to a complimentary foot massage, t hen indulged in morning yoga, estate walk sand afternoon spa treatments before pre-dinner cocktails.
Less adventurous souls sim- ply settle in the old library ( with fast internet) before joining the evening’s Sri Lankan feast in a lofty jackwood and glass dining room suspended over terraces and the jewel of a pool.
TO CREATE Rosyth’s sensational seasonal menu, Farzana – whose selfavowed passion is food – asked her chefs to recall all the finest curry dishes they’d ever tasted, then honed the list to a mouthwatering top 20. To it, she added kottu, a popular Sri Lankan street food. Once a week it’s prepared in the bungalow’s green courtyard, beneath mango trees and coconut palms, on a smoking hot griddle. Wafer- thin roti flatbread, lean beef, eggs and vegetables are chopped and mixed with two sharp steel paddles and a staccato, rat-a-tat energy. Farzana and Neil ensure that younger guests also develop a taste for kottu and curries, thanks to handson cooking classes and local market shopping trips. In common with The Mudhouse, food is prepared with fresh ingredients from the gardens. Like the Tarzans, Farzana and Neil work with the local c o mmunit y, supporting the neighbourhood school by refurbishing its classroom and funding scholarships in support of further education.
‘My favourite places in the world depend on wonderful food and wonderful people,’ said Farzana, which explains why Sri Lanka remains her chosen corner of the globe. And now mine…