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Travel - go guide

Sunils - zooming up in the south

by Padma Edirisinghe

A village about 2 km off Hikkaduwa, the Mecca of sun crazy tourists is named Narigama. A total of 100 km distances it from Colombo. Nari in Sinhala means 'fox', a sleek, sweet-looking animal that has earned a bad reputation over the centuries among humans due to certain allusions of its crafty wily nature.

Perhaps a 100 years ago or so, these creatures over-ran the area frolicking in abundance in idyllic green pastures giving the village its name. Nari or more correctly the more elongated term 'Naari' also means a woman. So the brochure writers on Sunils' Beach Hotel at Narigama prefers to give the springboard for the village's name as the village of women, that earns less credibility than the village of the fox.

However today there are still women in plenty around Sunils', foreign women in scanty-wear sun-tanning themselves around the hotel's exotic swimming pool, the average village woman on the roads and the large female force comprising the working staff of the hotel very diligently. But the fox population has done the vanishing trick completely, probably frightened by the never ending traffic on the Colombo-Matara road and by the fact that the copses and shrubbery too no longer exist for them to play hide and seek.

According to the modest Hotel owner who prefers to remain unnamed Sunils' is a result of the many enterprises he has launched on, to put the local entrepreneur on the map. Money is a necessary evil, he says, what is more important is to give a leadership in upcoming industries as the hotel industry without leaving this expanding field to become the ultimate patrimony of massive multi-national companies who are radiating their power all over the globe and eating up the 'small man'.

The small man, he evidently insinuates here is men like himself 'small in the context of the gigantic global hotel companies but massive in spirit and determination. He further wishes to set an example to the younger generation by this stand.

The hotel stands for a number of Ss, Sunil (the name of the owner), the sea - the crystal clear sea, solitude (I did one whole manuscript for a chilren's book during my 3 day stay there sitting in the sea - facing porch in absolute silence except for the ripple of the sea waves), sun, surf and of course serendipity, a quality the whole world identified with out island before the ethnic wars began and disturbed it all.

The hotel while attempting to reach the ultimate in all the facilities provided by the super class hotels of the metropolis as 60 separate spacious double rooms with all amenities, a shopping arcade, swimming pool, a bar and cuisine both East and West and even mask snorkel and flippers to view the denizens of the deep from glass- bottomed boats in the seas around Hikkaduwa, retains its native flavour of the murals depicting Sri Lankan history. The whole building carries the grace and charm of unique Sinhala architecture.

The hotel owner proclaims that he has no pretensions to academic learning, but take time to talk to him and you will be amazed by the vast knowledge he owns on varied aspects of by-gone history that has not been recorded down but has come down via oral traditions and does sound quite authentic. (However it is a pity that he has not researched into the derivative of the name, 'Narigama'). He himself hails from Ambatale by the Kelani river.

The manager, Lakshman Wijesinghe sees to it that each resident guest is treated like regal guest, if she or he has opted to come under Sunils' shelter and now it has decided to extend to local guests the warmth and hospitality that some hotels disgracefully reserve for the foreign tourists, the reservation or discrimination caused by the dollar-filled purses.

Says Sunils' owner, "Just now the hotel business makes it feasible for foreigners to enjoy the best things in our country, the beautiful beaches, the delightful cuisine and other facilities. Why not our local tourists too have a taste of them?" Good thinking that augurs well for the local man and woman bitten by the travel bug.

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