Slower Days
A cooking lesson over firewood, the village lanes by bicycle, and the Hiriwadunna village tour with its catamaran and bullock cart. Every one of them starts at your cottage door, and we arrange every part.
Learn to cook rice and curry over firewood, cycle the lanes between the paddy fields on our bicycles, or take the Hiriwadunna village tour a little past Habarana, catamaran and bullock cart included. We arrange each one. You choose the day.
What You Can Do
| Experience | Where | How long | Best time |
|---|---|---|---|
| Cooking lesson | A village kitchen a few minutes from the gate | Half a day, mostly sitting down | Late morning, so you eat it for lunch |
| Cycling the lanes | From the gate, on our bicycles | An hour, or a whole morning | Before 10am, when the heat arrives |
| Hiriwadunna village tour | About 30 minutes by road, a little past Habarana | About half a day, lunch included | Morning, while the water is still |
| Catamaran and bullock cart | On the Hiriwadunna tank and its village track | Part of the tour | The same morning |
None of it needs a car of your own. The cycling starts at the gate, the cooking lesson is a short walk or tuk-tuk away, and for Hiriwadunna we arrange the ride out and back.
The Cooking Lesson
Pick what is ready in the garden, then cook it over firewood in a village kitchen a few minutes from the gate. Seven curries is the usual count. You grind the coconut, you cut the gotu kola, you stir, and you eat the result under the trees, with your hands if you are willing.
The lesson is given by a family from the village we have worked with for years, in their own kitchen rather than a demonstration room. The recipes are the ones they cook for themselves, so what you learn is what people here eat on an ordinary day.
Children are welcome and usually end up on the coconut scraper. Allow half a day, mostly sitting down, and go late in the morning so that what you cook is your lunch.
Cycling
Flat tracks between paddy fields, tank bunds and back lanes with no traffic on them. Our bicycles are free for guests. We sketch you a route before you set off, with a stop for a king coconut along the way, and you ride for an hour or a whole morning at whatever pace suits you.
The light is better before 8am and the heat arrives around 10. Early is also when the lanes are busiest with village life: children walking to school, cattle being moved, breakfast being cooked.
Ride the day before Sigiriya Rock rather than the day after. Your legs will have opinions about the staircases for a while.
A Little Past Habarana
Hiriwadunna is a farming village on the edge of its own tank, about 30 minutes by road from the cottages. The tour is run by the village and follows the shape of a farming day. It takes about half a day, lunch included.
First
You walk the tank bund and then through chena, the dry-zone farmland where millet, gourds and chillies grow between the trees. A farmer shows you what is in the ground, what eats it, and the watch hut on stilts where someone sits at night when elephants come for the crop.
Then
Two dugout canoes lashed together under a platform, poled across the water with lotus around you and herons getting up ahead. A slow, flat crossing, and the only sound is the pole. Tell us if anyone in your party cannot swim and we will tell the boatman.
Back
A bullock cart takes you back along the village track at the pace of the bullocks, which is not fast. Dust, shade, the creak of the wheels, and the farmer talking to his animals the whole way.
Last
Rice and curries cooked in a village house while you are out on the water, eaten in the shade when you get back. If you did the cooking lesson the day before, this is your chance to see how someone else does it.
Hiriwadunna sits on the Habarana side, in the direction of Polonnaruwa, so it also fits the morning you leave with a driver. Transfers and Private Driver →
On the Water
Go in the morning. The water is still, the birds are working the edges, and you are back at the cottages before the sun is high, with the afternoon free for the pool, the shade under your own trees or a jeep to Minneriya.
One Message
Send us your dates, how many of you there are, and which of the four you fancy. The cycling is free, because the bicycles are ours. The cooking lesson and the Hiriwadunna tour are run by village families who set their own price per person, lunch included on the tour, and the ride out to Hiriwadunna is charged separately.
Those prices move with the season, and a figure printed here would soon be wrong, so we send them as they stand that week, before you commit to anything. The evening before is usually enough notice for the cooking lesson and the bicycles. Give us a day for Hiriwadunna.
Which Day
Two nights is enough for one village experience alongside the climb and a safari. Three nights fits them all.
| When | What fits |
|---|---|
| The afternoon you arrive | An hour on the bicycles before the light goes |
| The day of the climb | Sigiriya Rock at opening time, then the cooking lesson once you are down and hungry |
| A day with no climb in it | Hiriwadunna in the morning, back after lunch, a jeep to Minneriya at 2.30pm if you have the energy |
| The morning you leave | Hiriwadunna on the way out with a driver, if you are heading towards Polonnaruwa or the east coast |
For the safari itself, the Minneriya page explains the jeep and the park fee, and the experiences page has everything else within reach of the cottages.
Before You Book
Per person, set by the village, with the walk, the catamaran, the bullock cart and lunch all inside the one price. Getting there and back is a separate, smaller cost. Message us with your dates and your number and the two figures come back the same day, current for that week.
Leave the cottages around 8am and you are back by early afternoon: roughly 30 minutes each way on the road and the better part of a morning in the village, lunch included.
Yes, and the bullock cart and the catamaran are the parts children talk about afterwards. Tell us the ages when you message so the village knows who is coming. In the cooking lesson children usually take over the coconut scraper. Bring hats and water for both.
It is built around what is ready in the garden, so most of the seven curries are vegetables, dhal and sambols. Tell us about diets and allergies when you book and we pass them on to the family before you arrive.
The evening before is usually enough notice for cooking and cycling. For Hiriwadunna, give us a day so the village can have the boat, the cart and lunch ready for your number.
A hat, sun cream and closed shoes for the walk through the farmland, and something you do not mind getting dusty on the cart. The sun is strong by 10am, which is one more reason to go early.
Yes. Hiriwadunna is on the Habarana side of the cottages, towards Polonnaruwa and Trincomalee, so a driver can collect you here, wait through the tour and carry on east afterwards. Say so when you book the transfer and we time the two together.