Jungle Beach: Celebrates its second birthday
View(s):The expert opinion of World Luxury Hotel magazine, which offered this prize accolade to Jungle Beach, mentioned Kuchaveli, off Trincomalee is the best holiday hideaway on the shores of the Indian Ocean.
According to a release from the hotel, Jungle Beach was also rated the best resort hotel on the East Coast last year by the world’s most popular and authoritative online hotel and resort review site, tripadvisor.com. Jungle Beach Resort at Kuchaveli, owned and run by Uga Escapes, celebrated its second anniversary recently with CSR project with Kuchaveli Hospital. Kuchaveli, where, in the olden days, a ferry across the lagoon connected Trincomalee with the vast jungles of the Wanni, is a fabled beauty-spot where forest, sea, salt-marsh and lagoon come together to create an explosion of biodiversity on land and in the air and water.
From Left: Dr. S. Ruthraa the Doctor in Charge of Kuchaveli hospital, V. Sivapriyan Resort Manager of Jungle Beach and Ramli Ghaffoor CEO of Uga Escapes at the opening ceremony of the refurbished maternity ward
Jungle Beach, as its name implies, is built on a site that was – and effectively still is – part of the surrounding forest. The ten-acre area was selectively cleared of scrub, but the 180 mature trees growing on it were all spared and the hotel was built around them. With its low, thatched-roof buildings and absence of walls in public areas, Jungle Beach blends almost invisibly into its surroundings. Its 48 cabins, all crafted from indigenous materials, offer complete privacy and seclusion.
Now celebrating its second anniversary, Jungle Beach offers a weekend of luxurious living. Though Kuchaveli is a small community, its local hospital is the main source of medical and health care for almost three thousand families who live in the area.
Having become resident in the locality themselves, the management and staff of Jungle Beach were quickly made aware of the need to improve the hospital. They decided that it would make a grand second anniversary project for the resort. ‘This is a busy hospital,’ observed V. Sivapriyan, who is Resort Manager at Jungle Beach.
‘Apart from regular medical care, it also treats accidents and emergency cases 24 hours a day. But the most urgent need was for better maternity facilities.’
On the advice of Dr. Yogasigham Ruthraa, a member of the hospital administration, it was decided to concentrate, initially, on refurbishing and maintaining the hospital maternity ward. ‘Our team dedicated their best efforts to the completion of that task,’ says Sivapriyan, ‘and within a short period of time we had turned this ward into a first-class facility. This is a first in the history of Kuchaveli hospital’ he added.