So you thought we took the car and went away on our own, towards the horizon, in the middle of the night?
Wrong.

In Sweden people take out their toothbrushes when they try to indicate semi-politely to their guests that it's time to pack up, but we simply left, circled around and got back. Ha! Anyway it worked. We changed the clothes back to our anonymous discrete normal clothes and took off again to the Cinamon Grand hotel in Colombo.

(To visit the wedding site and view the photo album click here).

Cinamon grand, Colombo

If you visit their web page you'll see some huge (I really mean enormous) lamps in the middle of the hotel. The engineer part of me kept kicking my brain telling me what a waste of material and space this was, but the rest of the brain was too busy thinking "Wow!".
The room were very similar to some German mid class hotel standard. Everything was clean and worked as it should. The breakfast was probably the best of all the hotels we visited later, with a wide selection of fruits and other stuff.
We didn't have the time to check everything out, but I'd say this hotel is perfect for staying a few days in Colombo. Main impression is "impressive" and "problem and noise free".

Heritance, Kandalama

We arrived after a long drive (we had a rented car with a driver). The hotel looked like, at a first glance, some military installation until you got inside. Our luggage was taken care of by the staff and we got a welcome juice drink while the room was prepared (I guess). We also ordered a sandwich to the room, and later the usher came back and escorted us to our room, showed where the secret buttons were and left.
The room had a balcony and a bathroom with panorama view over the forest.We had our sandwich at the balcony, enjoying the view until a monkey climbed over to us in hope to share our snack. Not being overly used to these small hairy creatures I jumped a bit and stared at it (opon which it shied back looking hurt and slightly offended) and we then took our escape inside, closing the door. There is a sign saying not to feed them, but its hard not to because they are quite cute.

The bathroom closet is shared with the hall closet meaning you can open doors from both sides. From the bathroom side I could not resist scratching a bit on the inside of the hall closet door, causing Mihiri to urgently knocking on the bathroom door hissing "Patrick! There is a monkey in the closet!".

Beside the monkeys the room had one feature that shadowed all other hotels we visited: a jacuzzi. This bath tub was in principle placed on a glassed-in balcony, viewing the forest. So you could sit in the bubbles, having a drink, and watching the sun go down over the trees. How sweet is that? This was a "Deluxe room" in their description so if you want it make sure you book one of them.
Dinner was a buffet, and though we found in the guest book comments like "food was not good" and "life would be easier if papaya was peeled" I couldn't really find anything to complain about except that maybe it was a bit noisy.
As it turned out the door to the room had a small gap working as a good way of communicating with your next door neighbor (if you understood the language which I don't). There was not much of soft fabrics (many hotels has soft mats in the hallways to dampen the noise but this was not possible here) so sound was traveling freely and happily from the source (=the wailing kid in the other room screaming its lungs out) to the receiver (=My ears).
During our stay we also had tea in the upper lounge, watching a bar juggler performing, and we visited the warm pool outside (there is one which is a bit hidden and the rocks seem to heat it because it was warm).

All things considered I'd say this is probably the best room we had in all hotels, but bring ear plugs if you come here.
Main impressions: "luxury view" and "noisy".

Hunas falls by Amaya

To the next stop there was a bit of a ride. This hotel is in the mountain area, and the roads goes in serpentines round and back. I was sure in some curves I could see the back of the car going around the corner, thats how curvy the roads were.
Anyway we got there, our bag was taken care of and we got the key.
Apparently this hotel is recommended to honeymoon couples for some reason, probably because people are googling for "waterfall" "romantic" and "boat trip".

The room itself was on the bottom floor. At first the AC didn't work but it turned out it was just one fan speed that didn't (a bit old and cracked control panel on the wall). So setting another speed worked.
I would normally not get hung up on details, but regarding the price of this hotel room I feel I am at liberty to remark that for example there was some control knob for the radio that got loose (and the radio didn't work of course), the bathroom chair was rocking and there was some plastic details hanging loose from the washtub. All in all my first impression of the room was "not very well maintained". 

I think we were one of three couples in this hotel, and this was probably their reason to present a set menu. I ordered something with spare ribs and spaghetti Carbonara, as I thought it was simple dishes, but maybe it is only simple for an European who is used to it. The result was disastrous. Beside the fact that the ribs was inedible, Carbonara is not made with chicken afaik. Anyway, now I know better than to order European dishes.

So lets try out something else than the food. Boat trip. We were required to wear life jackets (but to what purpose I do not know since the water seemed to be only a bit deeper than to the waist). A guy paddled us around this muddy pond which you walk around in thee minutes. For a Swedish Viking this would count as a new, fairly embarrassing, experience. So after this exciting (not) trip we went to go up a hiking trail, to have a better look at the view, where HORRIBLE BLOOD-SUCKING CREATURES awaited to drag us out in the bushes and drain us of blood!

Leeches. This was my first experience of these small slimy bastards and at first I thought I got some kind of over-enthusiastic worm in my sandal. A few meters up the trail I told Mihiri that I got something in my shoes whereupon she stopped and yelled and started to run back. I did the same, shaking out a few of these small worm-like things from my sandals. When she told me this was leeches I was a bit disappointed. Being a horror-movie fanatic I expected something big like a loaf of black bread coming at you with huge teeth pointing in all directions. But these leeches was like small worms, maybe an inch long.
Later it turned out the leeches was a minor problem as compared to the food...
Main impressions: "bad food and sloppy maintenance".

Heritance tea factory

Away we went again, this time aiming for a Tea factory rebuilt to a hotel. The ride took us past flowing green tea plant hills. We stopped for tea at some places to watch the view, and this is a whole other face of Sri Lanka as compared to the buzzing bee-hive of Colombo.
Eventually we got to the factory. It actually looks like a well maintained factory building, steel plates and all, from the outside. Inside we were greeted with a cup of tea (naturally) and a guy painted a dot on our foreheads for some reason I never understood.
The room was nice and actually had an electric heater instead of AC. This was because the weather is "cold" (= as a Swedish summer). I'd have enjoyed this cooler climate more if not for the fact that my stomach started to ache.
Dinner was again a buffet, and the food was really good. Dress code is "smart casual" at dinner and I managed to pass the gatekeeper to the restaurant in my sarong. We were there on a full moon day so we could not order any wine or drinks, but they had Mohito as a mocktail. Worth to note is that they do not give straws in your drink; because of environmental friendliness they avoid single use plastic things.
When we were to have lunch the day after, before we left, I could not eat anything so they gave me some sandwiches to go and also something that might cure my stomach. "Just drink, don't taste" they said. Strong stuff, and maybe it helped a bit.

Main impression: "dedicated and friendly personnel. ".


Sorry for not being more detailed about the trip but I got fed up writing now :-)