2026 – Sri Lanka

We discussed winter sun destinations for early 2026. We talked about the Canary Isles (which never really appealed to either of us), Cape Verde (ditto) and were struggling.

I checked the weather for February in Sri Lanka and couldn’t think of a good reason to not go back to Hikkaduwa and ‘The Citrus’;  travelling direct, with Sri Lankan Airlines.

This would be my fifth stay at ‘The Citrus’ since 2017 and Ali’s third.

I’d originally thought that we would travel to Heathrow by train, as our flight wasn’t until the evening, but the limo-bus experiences we’d enjoyed on recent trips were compelling, and not stupidly expensive, so we booked the same guy we’d used previously.

Similarly, after our most recent unfortunate experience with a lounges at Heathrow, we were planning on skipping the lounges, but a glance at the bar menu prices – £13.75 for a Bloody Mary – suggested a lounge to be better value, so I booked one.

The car – actually a chic Mercedes Vaneo with a fancy fibre-optic lit ceiling – arrived promptly at three and, after a straightforward journey, we arrived at Heathrow Terminal three at four twenty. Check in and bag drop were a hassle – the self-service machines were being temperamental – but we still made it to the aforementioned lounge a few minutes after five.

The lounge itself was busy, but we found a quiet corner and two seats, the food was passable, and we enjoyed a few Bloody Marys before heading out to the gate.

Our flight was full, but comfortable, we’d pre-ordered Hindu meals and they were both (dinner and breakfast) delicious. The one problem we encountered was that the video on my seat-back system proved unwatchable, the video would skip through films randomly. First world problems. Instead I watched a movie on my iPad and started reading a book.

We landed at Colombo airport a few minutes early at twelve twenty on Thursday lunchtime and were swiftly through immigration, baggage collection and customs, actually hitting the road just after one.

The journey down to Hikkaduwa was equally smooth and we arrived at The Citrus Hotel at about three fifteen, where a warm welcome awaited us.

We had been put in Room 610, we’d staying in it on our last trip back in November ’24, it was as we remembered it, clean and functional. The view as dramatic as ever.

We unpacked the perishable goods we’d brought for Phill and Anne and put them in the in-room fridge. Phill and Anne were out of town visiting a hospital in Colombo, but I had no doubt we’d be seeing them soon.

Ali had a doze while I caught up with online stuff, then we headed down to the bar for a drink. There was no evidence of draught beer on offer, the All Inclusive option now is bottled ‘Lion Ice’ beer which, while pleasant, is not a classic. Non AI customers were drinking large bottles of the classic Lion brew.

The waiters greeted us and had reserved us a table, dinner was excellent, including a very nice, spicy beef dish and a classic dhal.

As we were finishing our meal, a crowd of about forty gap-year teenagers descended on the bar for the regular (every Wednesday and Thursday evening) karaoke session.

After dinner, we wandered down to the edge of the beach – as far from the karaoke as possible – and watched distant lightning and fishing boats on the horizon.

Next morning – Friday – we were fairly late for breakfast, most of the salad options had been eaten, but the omelette guy was preparing ‘hoppers’, I loaded one up with chickpeas and dhal to make a tasty breakfast.

We spent the day chilling on the lawn, a way back from the beach front, but the guy who dishes out the sunbeds and towels promised us a better location for future days as a couple were due to leave the next day. More first world problems.

Phill and Anne came over in the evening to join us for a drink; Phill’s had a rough time, heath-wise and was looking frail. He’ll be seventy-five this summer, and it’ll be fifty years in March since we first met at Midland Bank in Sheffield.

We chatted through the evening, despite the distraction of a duo singing in the nearby bar – hotels are now offering music acts every evening.

We had a couple of plans for Saturday but, after breakfast we headed down to our improved ‘pole position’ sunbeds on the edge of the lawn. The hotel’s boundary is marked by a low wall, hawkers and ‘lookie lookie men’ are allowed to try and sell items from the beach but are not allowed onto the lawn.

I was relieved to see, in the afternoon, the spice seller that I’d bought some chillies from back in 2019. He made it through the pandemic and lockdowns.

No sign of the Coconut seller, though.

One of our plans involved walking the short distance along the beach to ‘Turtle Beach’ where dozens of tourists paddled in the shadows and fed turtles. Ali had a swim in the ocean, but I skipped the paddling.

Later in the day I popped over the road to exchange my remaining Emirates currency for Sri Lankan Rupees. I figure that, with Gaz’s return to Blighty, we’re more likely to visit Sri Lanka than the gulf.

We enjoyed another quiet evening on the lawn avoiding the hotel ‘entertainment’.

Sunday is market day in Hikkaduwa so we grabbed a Tuk Tuk for the mile journey there, the equivalent of seventy-five pence at current exchange rates. The Tuk Tuk driver offered to take us to Galle and back on Monday for the equivalent of a tenner. Phill and Anne had told us that Lakshan has sold his Tuk Tuk and is now running a holiday cottage, quite successfully by all accounts, so we could no longer rely on him for transport.

We spent an enjoyable half an hour exploring the market, buying a couple of bits, then another seventy-five pence ride back to the hotel.

As promised, the pool guy had reserved the ‘pole position’ sun beds near the beach and we spent the rest of the day reading, dipping in the pool and generally chilling. The weather improved through the day, the forecast for the coming days is positive, but sunset was a disappointment.

As forecast, Monday morning was glorious. As I mentioned, we had arranged a trip to Galle Fort with Sunday’s Tuk Tuk driver and found him waiting at reception, promptly, at ten AM.

The journey down to Galle took about half an hour, he was a more cautious driver than Lakshan, and we were dropped near the Heritage Café. There are plenty of interesting shops in the area, we explored some of them before enjoying a drink back at the café.

We met our driver near the lighthouse at about twelve thirty and he cautiously whisked us back to the hotel.

We spent the afternoon relaxing by the beach and reading our books before heading down the road to “Mama’s” bar for a drum concert early evening.

It’s a drum group that Anne plays with. The group is led by an excellent, wild-haired drummer who runs a drum shop (also called Elephant’s Foot) just across the road from the bar. Gaz and I had visited “Mama’s” several times on our previous trips, but had never seen it as busy – mostly with ex-pats – as it was on Monday evening.

We had planned an excursion over the road to the supermarket on Tuesday, but became ensconced in our books by the beach, again. The occasional clouds of the first few days had gone and the weather was full sunshine.

We headed down the road to the ‘Wow’ bar to catch up with Phill and Anne, and a bunch of ex-pats for ‘sunset drinks’.

The bar was lively, the sunset beautiful, but we both agreed the ex-pat lifestyle is probably not for us. It was a fair walk, over half a mile, and the footpaths uneven, so we grabbed a Tuk Tuk back to the hotel for dinner. The hotel seemed to be emptying out, the girl in the hotel restaurant told us that there were just eighty guests staying at the hotel.

Wednesday dawned bright and sunny and we returned to our sunbeds on the edge of the lawn. Anne had told us that she had a yoga class next door, but called round for a chat at midday, after her class.

In the evening we wandered down to ‘The Den’ for a quiet pre-dinner drink, it’s only about twenty metres down the beach, but it was nice to try the classic Lion beer.

The hotel bar filled up with teenagers again for the Karaoke, but we were happy to leave them to it and have an early night.

We were in a ‘lazing around’ groove, so on Thursday we were back in our preferred sunbeds. We were joined by a couple from Leeds who appeared to be obsessed with saving money. They’d taken a bag of laundry down the road to a place that priced laundry by weight; given that the hotel charges less than a pound to wash and iron a pair of trousers, that seemed a tad excessive.

I bought some curry powder and crushed chillies from the Lookie Lookie man.

We enjoyed a bit of drama in the afternoon, as one of the hotel’s groundskeepers clambered up a few of the palm trees to cut back some of the fronds and coconuts.

In the evening we visited ‘Funky Da Bar’ for sunset drinks, the sunset views were great, but it wasn’t particularly welcoming, and the music loud. So, we ducked out and called into “Sam’s Bar” which is probably the closest to an English pub, with a good selection of draught beers. Gaz and I had tried both bars on our previous trips, “Sam’s Bar” still has an ‘Essex Boys’ pump-clip on display from Crouch Vale brewery, less than a mile from our house.

More Karaoke in the hotel bar, so another early night.

We had arranged to meet up with Phill and Anne for lunch on Friday. We enjoyed our final morning by the beach, then scooted to the supermarket over the road to stock up on spices.

We found the Tuk Tuk driver that we’d used previously, and he whizzed us up to Asian Dreams, in the hills above Hikkaduwa.

Lunch was excellent, we had a couple of Margaritas before our lunch, Ali enjoyed a fish pie while I had another of Dale’s excellent curries.

We returned to the hotel late afternoon, blasted!

By chance we’d chosen a good day to lunch outside the hotel, as they were hosting a couple of corporate events, with over a hundred day guests.

Neither of us could face dinner, instead we headed back over the road to “Sam’s Bar”, I was particularly taken with the Lion Brewery’s 7% red ale, which was rich and malty, with caramel overtones.

Then back to the hotel for a nightcap (or two) in the garden. I was hoping for a Lion Stout as on previous trips, but the barman advised that they no longer stock ‘strong beers’.

Our car back to the airport was booked for eight AM on Saturday morning, so we were down for breakfast at seven thirty, leaving our suitcases at reception. For the first time there was no dhal on offer, but we enjoyed our final hoppas. The car arrived on time and we said our farewells to the hotel staff, they requested we pose for a ‘farewell’ photo, which will probably appear in their social media sometime (update – it appeared three weeks later).

Our journey to the airport took under two hours and we were swiftly checked in and through passport control.

While we were waiting for our flight, we received news bulletins that Israel and the United States had started bombing Iran, and consequently our inbound flight was delayed as it had been routed to avoid the conflict area. We eventually took off around two hours later than planned and were advised that our journey might be longer than expected.

Sure enough, watching the in-flight maps we could see that we were routed over Egypt, rather than the gulf and while we were due to land at Heathrow just after seven, we landed at nine.

Terminal three was remarkably quiet, and we were in our car (the driver had been monitoring our flight arrival time) by nine forty-five and home by eleven fifteen. Our previous trips to Sri Lanka had included transit through gulf airports – Abu Dhabi, Dubai and Doha – all of which had been closed by the conflict, boy were we pleased to have chosen direct flights this time!

Despite the slightly stressful return journey, we had enjoyed a relaxed break in Sri Lanka, enjoyed some winter sunshine, and caught up with old friends.