Suitelife by the lake

Resort report By Royston Ellis

"Indulge yourself with a healthy sunrise breakfast on the shores of the lake" urged the welcome letter from Sarath Wickremasinghe, general manager of Cinnamon Lodge.

After a five hour drive from Colombo to Habarana, we had been guided to our suite by a young man introduced to us as our butler, Nuwan. Instead of Jeeves's bow tie and tails he wore an orange tunic and an equally vivid sarong. Monkeys gambolled in the vast parkland setting while birds - including a hornbill - chortled in surprise as we walked to our suite. Tall Roystonea palm trees, my favourite of course, guarded the swimming pool that itself adjoined a mini-lake where a small rowing boat was moored by the bank.

Setting for sunrise breakfast by the lake

We were staying in one of the four Master Suites in the 142-unit resort. My first experience of suites was during my youthful rock 'n' roll years when I toured the USA with a band and we had bedrooms with parlours attached. Since then I have stayed in so-called suites that are no more than a standard bedroom partitioned off from an alcove with a curtain. The suites at Cinnnamon Lodge are not those kind; they are more like private villas.

Entrance is from a veranda with chairs for lazing while watching wild birds flitting in the trees and tame tourists strolling to their rooms. The door of our suite, number 73, the Cedar, opened into a hall with stairs of polished coconut wood and an umbrella stand, with four umbrellas. Ahead was the parlour, a symphony of polished wood and a club-like atmosphere of which the real Jeeves would have approved.

A wooden, silk upholstered chaise longue guarded the approach to the French windows opening onto another veranda, this one overlooking the park and lake. A huge cement chaise longue, heavily cushioned, defined one end of the room, while solid wooden furniture with mini-bar and pantry cupboard marked the other end. A guest bathroom was beyond. In the middle was a massive dining table for eight guests, and there were books on the shelves and apples in bowls as décor.

Off the hallway was a bedroom for two, with ensuite bathroom and its own TV, while the master bedroom was up the stairs. Entering it was to be transported to the elegance of a Bangkok five-star hotel: an enormous, deep bed piled high with silk cushions and spread with crisp, Egyptian cotton sheets. French windows opened onto a broad balcony, an ideal spot for sundowners. In the bathroom there was a Jacuzzi with lake view, a separate vanity table and twin stand-alone wash basins, and a rain shower.

The Cinnamon Lodge suites seem designed for permanent residence, not for an over-night stay. Unfortunately tourists on a round-trip, racing around Sri Lanka, have no time to stay long at the resort. Sri Lankans are luckier in being able to settle there for a few days while sightseeing in the Cultural Triangle, or simply enjoying the tranquillity of the countryside.

In a way, Cinnamon Lodge is like a resort in the Maldives since it is horizontal and secluded and self-contained. For a holiday it offers much more than a Maldives resort, at much less cost, because of the attractions - elephants instead of fish, jungle instead of sand - as well as privacy and individual attention from a tropical Jeeves.

The master bedroom of Cedar Suite at Cinnamon Lodge

Ours attended us on demand throughout our stay. He served us when we dined in the restaurant on an eclectic table d'hote menu of innovative cuisine (executive chef, Senaka, even gave us his recipe for Tomato Crystal Consomme). Butler Nuwan also delivered the promised "healthy breakfast" on a table set up especially for us on the lake shore. Hearty is a better word to describe the omelette, bacon, sausages and two baskets of bread all washed down with fresh wood apple juice. Perhaps the healthy touch was the exercise of the walk to get to it.

Cinnamon Lodge is remarkable in retaining an unspoilt character despite its years of existence (it was previously known simply as Habarana Lodge) while, with its manorial suites, positioning itself as an upmarket sophisticated retreat for the cultured and discerning. www.cinnamonhotels.com