в целом неплохо overall, not bad

Good day!
I decided to write a little about the rest at the Induruwa Beach Hotel (February 7-21.2013). My wife and I were in Sri Lanka for the first time. We flew with Fly Dubai from Yekaterinburg with a change in Dubai. The flights took place almost on schedule, in general, everything is not bad, but there are 2 minuses. In this company they do not feed (or rather, they feed and drink for money). So I recommend taking sandwiches with you and buying liquid for them in Duty Free. Secondly, a transfer is still inconvenient (although we stayed in Dubai for about half an hour - we got out and ran to the next flight. We traveled from a travel agency and a representative from Exotic Tours met us at the airport and took us to hotels by bus. Dollars we exchanged for rupees at the airport (that's right, the rate is higher there) and bought a local SIM card Dialog (it was enough and still left). The bus drove to our hotel for 3 hours (we were the most extreme). We arrived at the hotel around 8-9 in the morning , and check-in there from 12.
But in the end we were settled earlier (at 10 o'clock) and fed breakfast. Speaking of food. We took one breakfast. Breakfast - buffet. We are not very fastidious people and everything is in order with our stomachs, so everything was enough for us. But: about half of the dishes (including fish, chicken, sausages and some vegetables) are made according to local recipes and such an abundance of spices is unusual for our stomachs. My wife and I tried to take local exotics to a minimum, but still we had to fast for 1 day - slight nausea, lack of appetite, loose stools (sorry) did not contribute to a pleasant rest. After that, however, apparently our bodies adapted and everything returned to normal. The hotel is located between the highway (there is also a railway next to it) and the ocean. But the road in the hotel is almost inaudible - everything drowns out the sound of the waves. The rooms are clean, spacious enough and comfortable.

The room has an electric kettle (water, tea, sugar and instant coffee are worn every day), a minibar in the refrigerator, a thermos of water, a TV, air conditioning and a large fan on the ceiling. Clean and change linen (as well as soap and shampoo as they are used) every day. Employees put flowers on the bed and sometimes make elephants out of towels. Nobody asks for a tip, but if you offer, they don't refuse. There is a safe in the room, but it does not work, there is a working safe at the reception, but we did not use it. Near the hotel - swimming pool, beach and ocean. Attention: the ocean is open here, there are always waves. If there is no wind, they are small and almost anyone can swim out into the open. But if there is wind, it is not recommended to swim in the sea, especially for unprepared people. Several times during our stay, someone was hit by a wave, and then these citizens were rescued and pumped out. The hotel was inhabited mainly by Russian-speaking people from Russia and Ukraine.
There is a small lagoon near the hotel, if the wave is small, you can swim in it. But if the wind is blowing, the waves overflow over the stones and something similar to a washing machine turns out in the lagoon - the sand rises, the water is muddy and the waves greatly interfere. There is almost no animation at the hotel (once there were some musicians in the restaurant in the evening and there was also a big Sabantuy on Valentine's Day). Nearby to the left and to the right there are restaurants where you can eat wonderful seafood (shrimp, fish, lobsters, etc. ). The prices are not very low, but all this living creature is fresh from the ocean and very tasty.
A separate word about excursions. Young people of pleasant appearance roam the beach and offer to take them somewhere (the so-called beach fights). We used Shan's services. This is such a slightly curly dense young man with a charming smile.
We heard only good things about him and went with him to shops and excursions to the city of Galle, to the river, to the turtle farm and to the mine with a jewelry factory. I don't want to say anything bad about other people, but we liked Shan. He tries to help, and not just "cut cabbage" from foreigners. By the way, his prices are usually lower than those of other scourge fights and tuktukers. He studies Russian and speaks quite clearly. On distant excursions (to Kandy and Nuwara Eliya) we went with guides from Exotic Tours. In general, we got the impression that local travel agencies do not really need us. No one offered us any excursions until we ourselves began to learn from them. We came across guides who were in Russia (one of them studied in Smolensk in the 90s, the other is a former tea merchant, he spent about a year in our country at the same time). People certainly try, but their Russian language, to put it mildly, is not up to par.

In addition, it seems that they do not have special training in the history and geography of their native country (or maybe they have, but due to insufficient knowledge of the Russian language, they do not always understand the questions correctly). In general, compared with Thailand, Indonesia and Egypt, the level of organization and conduct of excursions is much lower.
The overall impression of the trip is good. First of all, it is a magnificent ocean - powerful, warm, clean and alive. Beautiful mountains covered with jungle. Near the hotel there are streets that go beyond the railway - I highly recommend taking a walk along them. The most picturesque garden is a forest in which houses of local residents are built (by the way, they are very clean and tidy). The people are generally friendly and responsive, but during trading operations they can "heat up" (which, in general, is not uncommon in Russia).
In general, we do not regret the trip, but we probably won’t go a second time.

George and Tatiana, Yekaterinburg