Deals of the week
LONG HAUL
Tobago from £749pp: Soak up the sunshine for seven nights at the threestar Shepherd’s Inn near Pigeon Point. Departs from Gatwick on dates between June 1-30 and includes 23kg luggage allowance and breakfast. Book by May 15. britishairways.com/tobago
Florida from
£899pp: Seven nights’ room-only at the four-star
Tropical Beach
Resort in Sarasota, near to Siesta Key’s award-winning beaches. Price is for two adults and two children sharing, departing Heathrow between October 17-24. Includes £179 donation to the charity of your choice. Book by June 6. charitable.travel
SHORT HAUL
France for £235: Stay at Sunelia’s new holiday park, Domaine de la Michelière at Saint-Gilles-Croix-de-Vie in Vendee, with waterpark, in two-bedroomed, selfcatering accommodation for seven nights arriving May 30. sunelia.com/en Egypt for £814pp: Snap up 14 nights’ all-inclusive at the five-star Makadi Palace Hotel in Hurghada. Departs from Manchester on May 17 and includes 20kg luggage and late checkout. redseaholidays.co.uk
Malta from £552pp: Go all-inclusive for a week at the four-star Seabank Hotel and Spa, Mellieha Bay, departing from Stansted (other airports available) on May 17. mercuryholidays.co.uk
HOLIDAY COTTAGES
Cornwall for £594: Save £285 on a week in Porth Beach House, which is two miles from Newquay. Sleeps four. Arrive May 14. sykescottages.co.uk
Suffolk from £610:
Save 20% on a fournight stay at Woodfarm Barns near Needham Market arriving May 9. Six barns and two cottages sleep two, with up to three dogs welcome, and have hot tubs. woodfarmbarns.com
STAYCATION Butlin’s Bognor Regis from £14.75pp:
Book ahead for a four-night Showtime Midweek break featuring Peppa Pig and PJ Masks staying in a two-bedroom Silver Room, arriving on January 23, 2023. Dining packages from £21.75 per adult and £10.90 per child per day. butlins.com
STAR BUY
Greece from £209pp: Jet off for seven nights’ self-catering at the two-star-plus Lambrini Studios in Parga. Departs on May 21 from Gatwick. Deal includes £270 saving. olympicholidays.com
Prices correct at time of publication and based on two sharing unless stated
otherwise.
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Cinnamon Bentota Beach hotel – is the food, with extensive buffets for breakfast, lunch and dinner including cuisine from all over the world but specialising, as you’d expect, in traditional Sri Lankan dishes.
And you don’t need to be a candidate for MasterChef to take recipes away to try at home, with Cinnamon’s friendly chefs and kitchen staff only too happy to give you a hands-on lesson in cooking your own lunch.
We rustled up tempered prawns, fish curry, dhal and spinach curry, tempered long beans and potato with yellow rice and coconut sambol, which was far easier than it sounds.
Like with most cooking, the secret is in the preparation and with all the spices and ingredients lined up and ready to go, it only takes about 20 minutes to go from pan to plate.
The five-star hotel’s rooms are sumptuous, with plenty of space and all the trimmings, including double sink units in the open bathroom/ dressing area, raised centrepiece bath with a sea view, and separate wet room.
A suite includes a luxurious lounge complete with large TV, work area and two balconies with a pool and sea view.
The immaculately kept grounds house three swimming pools, one including a swim-up bar, and all nestled among palm and beautiful flowering frangipani trees, while the stunning stretch of white sandy Bentota Beach and the warm waters of the Indian Ocean are a few minutes’ walk away.
The hotel has a well-equipped gym and a water sports centre which offers jet-skis, water skiing and banana boat rides.
For the more adventurous, a step outside the hotel complex throws you into the hustle and bustle of the main road leading to downtown Bentota.
You can take a tuk-tuk or walk in to see an intriguing array of shops and roadside outlets while the locals go about their daily business on “sit-upand-beg” pushbikes that look like they were designed at the turn of the last
century. Colourful and chrome-rimmed old-fashioned Leyland buses are packed to the gunnels with commuters, and mopeds weave in and out of gaps in the often chaotic traffic, dominated by the noise of tooting horns and two-stroke engines.
A common sight is a helmeted Mum and Dad on a moped with a small child sandwiched precariously and usually unprotected in between – enough to make the heads of health and safety teams spin back home. But this is everyday life in South Asia.
A tailor sits behind his trusty Singer sewing machine, working on his latest line in childrenswear, smiles and says “hello” before offering to run up a made-tomeasure shirt or jacket, while a “licensed” money exchange dealer enquires politely to every passing tourist if they need local currency.
Being a closed currency, you cannot take Sri Lankan rupees in or out. The airport at Colombo provides the first opportunity to convert your spending money, although there are plenty of ATMs and banks.
There are smarter bazaars selling gifts and souvenirs from locally made woodcrafts and ornaments to the usual tourist tat, plus a lively fish market and stalls selling coconuts and bananas – there are 17 varieties – and corn on the cob cooked in large pans.
This is real life – a taste of local culture that’s starkly juxtaposed with the hotel’s luxurious resort location.
For a more tranquil experience, the nearby Lunuganga country residence of Sri Lanka’s famous architect Geoffrey Bawa, who designed and built the Cinnamon Bentota Beach hotel in the late 1960s, is 10 minutes away.
Bawa spent 40 years perfecting the landscaping of his weekend retreat which has glorious views from several vantage points in the extensive gardens hidden away in the forest on the banks of Lake
Dedduwa. A must-see is turtles emerging from the water to lay their eggs on the beach at a nearby hatchery and conservation centre where you can even release the baby reptiles into the water.
Another highly recommended trip is to the fortified coastal town of Galle which has plenty of upmarket boutiques and eateries.
It’s also home to a Test match cricket ground that was washed away by the 2004 tsunami that claimed over 30,000 lives on the island, and which the late, great Australian spin bowler Shane Warne paid to be rebuilt.
A coastal train was wiped out in the natural disaster, killing
1,700 alone, and a monument stands as a reminder of the huge loss.
But this is a vibrant country full of positivity, and a welcoming culture that’s only too pleased to see travellers from afar.
But maybe think twice about going swimming in the rivers!