Bentota: The Coast Closest to Colombo Done Properly

Bentota is where the Colombo crowd goes on weekends and they have been going for long enough that the area has developed into a genuinely polished coastal destination without losing the essential quality of the beach itself. The southern beach at Bentota is wide, long, and relatively calm for most of the year. The town behind it is quiet and unhurried.

The Bentota River behind the beach is the other reason to be here. Hire a small boat for a morning and head into the mangrove channels where monitor lizards bask on the roots and kingfishers move like coloured darts through the gaps in the branches. The river opens into lagoon sections where the water is still and glassy and the reflections of the palms are perfect. This is one of the most genuinely calming mornings available within easy reach of Colombo.

Lunuganga, Geoffrey Bawa's country estate, is twenty minutes from Bentota town and it is one of the essential visits in Sri Lanka for anyone who cares about architecture, landscape design, or simply beautiful spaces. The estate is open for day visits and there is also a small guesthouse where you can stay overnight. Waking up at Lunuganga and having the gardens to yourself before the day visitors arrive is an experience worth the planning it requires.

Brief Briefing on getting there: the train from Colombo Fort to Bentota takes about ninety minutes on the coastal line with the sea visible for much of the journey. This is the right way to arrive. The car is faster but the train puts you into the right frame of mind before you have even sat down on the beach.