Leijay Resort- Our Sri Lankan home

Our home for the month. 

For our month long stay in Sri Lanka, we stayed at the Leijay Resort in Galle. We were about a 10 min tuk tuk ride from the Galle Fort, 15 min from Unawatuna Beach and only 5 minutes from Karapitiya Hospital. The resort was more like a guesthouse in that there were just two homes with 2 rental rooms in each. There was a flat in between the two homes that could also sleep 4 people. Each home had a shared patio, common room and kitchen, though we didn't need the kitchen since we had Jayantha! Jayantha is the chef on the property (and pretty much ran the whole place from behind the scenes) and he made some of the best food! He could make anything from the standard rice and curry to chicken piccata. It was nice to have the option of eating western food if we needed a break from all the curry. Mollie and I barged in the kitchen one afternoon while he was making our curries for the evening- we wanted to learn to make curry so we could fix it ourselves when we go into withdrawal in the US. He laughed at us but let us stay to watch. We saw him make dahl (lentils and coconut milk), a chicken curry, and 2 different vegetable curries. YUM! It seems simple, but probably because Jayantha's been cooking for a long time. I hope I can figure this out when I get back!

Rock climbing is easier than coconut-tree climbing!
I don't have monkey feet! 

The staff at Leijay was fantastic. Dinesh- our tuk tuk driver- was a man of many talents. If we needed money exchanged "I do that. No problem." If we needed a ride to the beach or to dinner,  "I do that. No problem." If we wanted a coconut to drink while lounging at the pool.... he and his monkey feet would climb up. No problem. One afternoon I tried to climb the trees myself, but apparently it's not like rock climbing. I could hang on to the tree for a while, but there was no vertical movement. I couldn't get my hands and feet coordinated to move while shifting my body weight. It seems easy. Trust me, it's not. Luckily, after Dinesh watched and laughed at me for a while, he decided to show off and climb a higher tree to get each of us a coconut to drink. The King Coconuts (yellow) are much different than the coconuts I'm used to... the green ones you see in Hawaii. The kings are yellow and have a sweet water inside. Yummy!

Having grown up in Unawatuna, Dinesh knows all the hot spots for us to go to.... bars, restaurants, beaches, you name it, he's got a suggestion for us. And he was never wrong! Everything he suggested was incredible. Best sunsets, delicious food, great parties, good times!

Dinesh is the pro tree climber. He went to get me a coconut.

Dinesh opening up a King Coconut for me!

Dinesh let me drive the tuk tuk! Only for a few minutes
and only on our small street, but still. I drove it! 

The grounds keepers and house keepers were also so sweet and always smiling. Seriously, always smiling. There was no way you could look at Maleni and not feel good. Her joy was infectious. The Swiss owner, Yvonne, also lives on the grounds and really does treat us like family. When my classmate Holly was sick and coughing, Yvonne brought over her personal cough syrup (Syrup Maduka- some crazy molasses-smelling Ayeurvedic stuff), sent the boys out to get her some other medicine, got her some tea and offered to set her up at an clinic if needed. She really wanted to make sure we were happy with our stay. The hospitality here was incredible.

Our lizard friend! 

Yvonne is also a huge lover of animals and has taken in 4 stray dogs on the property. There are many wild dogs roaming around Sri Lanka. It breaks my heart to see so many of them with bites out of their ears, or patches of fun missing from being burned or tortured by evil humans. One of the dogs, Cherie, was rescued after some boys tried to hang her from a tree... just for fun. So much for that Buddhism they claimed to practice. Needless to say, Cherie was very frightful of people and only trusted Maleni or Yvonne (probably cause they fed her!). Balu (means dog in Sinhalese) is one of the dogs who took a while to warm up to us. He always watched us from afar, not venturing onto our patio, but watching his buddy Dutchess get all our love and attention. By the last week of our stay Balu was making his way onto our patio for belly rubs. He wasn't going to let Dutchess get all our loving!

Overall a great place to stay. It really was like a home away from home. It was easy to hop on the bus (a whole other blog posting!) or have Dinesh take us on the tuk tuk anywhere we wanted to go. Any tour we wanted, they would arrange it. Any beach we wanted, they would take us. Any food we wanted, Jayantha would cook it and if he couldn't cook it, they would go out and get us take away! We couldn't have asked for a better home for our month in Sri Lanka.

Dutchess

Balu