Sri Lanka Sojourn:
A trip to the Teardrop Island with both luxury and little ones in mind.
A family trip with a luxury touch
f Sri Lanka isn’t on your shortlist for family travel destinations, it should be. It’s got mountains, beaches, adventure, culture, history and a cuisine all of its own – all less than a four-hour flight from Singapore. As its popularity increases, so do the country’s service standards, perhaps no place more than at Àni Villas, an ultra-luxurious property along the country’s southern coast.
Set on a natural bluff above the Indian Ocean, Àni Villas combines the amenities of a five-star hotel, the ease of an allinclusive resort and the exclusivity of a private villa. Its two gorgeous villas – one with seven bedrooms and the other with eight – each have two-storey open-living pavilions, large pools with water-parkworthy slides and private pools outside most of the bedrooms (the ones without are perfect for small children). Bedrooms are designed with absolute comfort in mind; dressing rooms keep suitcases and toys out of sight, and bathrooms boast oversized tubs, and indoor and outdoor showers. Furnishings and décor are a blend of Dutch colonial and modern tropical styles.
Those of you with large families, lean in. We arrived to find a room with beds for my three kids and our helper already set up; it connected to our bedroom via a large, shared entranceway. Àni Villas is extremely accommodating with whatever room configurations you want, and they have extra beds and cribs to accommodate families of all sizes.
The idea of a staffed private villa is, of course, not new. But a villa with the size, amenities and service of a five-star hotel is. The property is set on 20,000 square metres and has its own tennis court, gym and Ayurvedic spa. And while having someone to clean your villa and cook your breakfast is wonderful, having an entire team catering to your every desire is a whole new level altogether.
The staff – many of whom are former Aman and Four Seasons employees – predict what you want before you even have to ask. Emerge from the pool – they’re waiting with towels. Feel a twinge
of thirst – here they come with iced Ceylon tea and canapés. Return from the beach – they’ve set up a station to clean your sunglasses and iphone. This is the first trip I’ve taken where I thought “Ah, so this is how Oprah travels”.
There is something so very indulgent about wine pairings and dessert with every meal. Cyril, the villa’s executive chef, and his team prepare elaborate, multi-course feasts of Western and Sri Lankan cuisine, both heavily influenced by red mullet, sear fish and other locally-caught seafood. To keep things interesting, meals and dining locations change for every meal. One day, breakfast of egg and string hoppers and pittu is served in an air-conditioned room off the rock garden; lunch – a mix of giant prawn, calamari and fresh tuna – is served in an open living sala by the pool; and dinner is a clay-pot service of six curries, tableside-prepared kottu (a popular Sri Lankan street food) and more sambals, mallums and chutneys to count, eaten at the water’s edge. From breadfruit and thumba to custard apple and gamboge, ingredients are a foodie’s dream.
If you’re at that stage in life when holidays are really just you running madly after your kids in a foreign location rather than home, Àni Villas is your new best friend. That’s what my five-yearold daughter called Shahani – “my best big girlfriend” – a name our villa butler earned by tending to my three children from sunup to sundown. She and other staff members helped the kids during meals and while we swam. They baked chocolate chip cookies and made flower crowns for their hair. They went on treasure hunts, painted pictures, played board games and made paper boats to float in the ponds. Every time an errant toy or shoe got swept away in the surf, a staffer heroically sprinted into the sea to retrieve it. Kids are in no way an afterthought, as shown each night when three tiny pairs of slippers would appear at turndown service.
All this attention allowed my husband to get in a few matches with the villa’s tennis pro, and me a private morning
yoga class (the birds, the breeze, the sea!) and an Ayurvedic consultation with the spa manager followed by a four-handed massage in the spa.
My husband later said his favourite moment of our trip was a coffee we shared at sunrise by the pool. Aren’t parents funny creatures? When silence is scarce, it’s the simple pleasures that mean the most. The staff here gets that.
Aptly called a “super luxury” experience, a stay here doesn’t come cheap. If you’ve got Winfrey in your name, you’re all set. For the rest of us, a stay here is doable once you factor in that virtually everything is included in the price. And I do mean nearly everything – meals, beverages (including alcohol), spa treatments, sports ( tennis, yoga, personal training, cycling tours), laundry, international calls, airport transfers, movies, mini-bar, cooking classes and kids’ activities. Join together with a few families and factor in all the inclusions, and you’re not that far from what you’d pay at a five-star resort. Add in value for the privacy and personal attention of it all, and Àni Villas wins every time.
What’s not included? Things like Cuban cigars and Dom Perignon (though you can BYO) as well as day trips to Galle Fort, the tea plantations or safaris to Udawalawe.
A few days here felt like a week, and we’ve been plotting to return since the moment we left. Speaking of leaving, there is no check- out. That moment when you tally up meals, massages and midnight mini- bar raids – it doesn’t happen here. You pay before you go, and then just enjoy. When we left, the kids produced Oscar- worthy wails for “Shahaniiiii!” all the way to Galle. Mentally, I concurred. If it was socially acceptable for adults to weep in these situations, I would have joined right in.
The property and the service are immaculate and refined to the smallest detail. Grass is billowy to the foot, soaps are hand-made; breakfast milk is poured from crystal decanters. If there was fault to be found, I never found it.