Raajmahal- An Exclusive private Boutique garden Villa,South Coast of Sri Lanka

After a trip of one week in Kandy area, we spent great days in Raajmahal. The villa is very beautiful, we felt transported in the past but with all the modern comfort. We mostly appreciated to relax in the wonderful garden or at the swimming pool after having visited some interesting place in the area (Galle, Brief Garden, the turtle hatchery...). All the people working in the villa are very nice and make your stay a very good experience. We have really liked the food prepared by the Chef, the best that we ever had during our entire journey, much better than in any restaurant we've been to! We dream to come back one day, maybe with a family of friends as we occupied only 3 of the 5 rooms of the villa.

We and our 3 young children stayed at Raajmahal for 10 days prior to going on to The Maldives. We wanted to see some of Sri Lanka and the villa was an ideal base for trips out to Galle, Kandy and many local attractions - elephants, turtle hatchery, gemstone mine etc.

Firstly, the villa - it's very spacious with a lovely big verandah overlooking the tropical gardens. The pool is of an average size and not very deep, but that suited us fine with the kids. But it is walled all round and not overlooked so it's very private, but note that access is through 3 of the bedrooms although you can get to it via a side gate from the garden. Pool towels are provided, you just need to ask. The decor is simple but quite good, although note the main bathroom was quite old and shabby, the other bathrooms are quite basic. We met Ifham the owner who advised he is planning to refit the main bathroom soon. All beds have mosquito nets which were very useful as we found there were lots of mossies around. There is a big TV with satellite channels and DVD player which kept the kids entertained in the evenings, plus a pool table. One thing to note is the local mosque which is next door - there is a wake up for the call to prayer at 5:00am every day!

The staff were great and really made staying at Raajmahal a treat - Leela the housekeeper did our washing and ironing, but the star was Anura the chef who made us delicious food and would take us to the local supermarket and market to buy fresh produce. He was very experienced at preparing all types of food and even did a lobster and jumbo prawn barbecue one evening, with homemade barbecue sauce. The local Sri Lankan dishes like coconut curry and rice with vegetable were fantastic and the kids loved it too.

Thushara was our driver and he did a great job of taking us out either locally in his tuk tuk or for longer trips in an air conditioned van. He knows all the good places to go and can advise you on information, shopping, eating out and history etc. In fact, Thushara is very kind and can organise any trip you want to do and was very helpful in sorting out any help we needed during our stay - eg. going to the local doctors and getting my watch strap fixed!

The villa owner Ifham and his manager Mr Saly very kindly even organised a cake for our wedding anniversary - a lovely surprise! Overall we had a great time at Raajmahal and were very well looked after by the staff.

regarding villa and staf we had nice time with them the chef cook many kind Asian and western and more the owner the owner was good to us. We just complain transport never we get the price agree always the price increase after we lives villa and price more than other 30-40% if we like to get from out said CAB they tell us out said CAB dangers if any problem happened we cant do any thing We paid for round airport pick up advance after they send us back to airport (last day) they asked about 60$ more price was for round trip 160$ they make for us to match noise we planning call police but we afraid miss the flight.