Ulpotha has been a pilgrimage site for thousands of years and remains an oasis of tranquility in the heart of Sri Lanka. It is a beautiful private hide-away open to guests for part of the year; a place of total peace, where you can experience the warm, generous and gentle hospitality which Sri Lankans love to offer.

Ulpotha is a traditional working village cradled on the one side by low mountains and a lotus ringed lake, and on the other by tiny emerald green paddy fields. Our focus, at present, is on the restoration of an ageless agricultural way of life including bio-diverse organic farming and reforestation of the land and its immediate surroundings.

Guests are welcome to Ulpotha and those who come will find a natural sanctuary of exceptional beauty where the main activity is simply relaxing in its remarkable atmosphere of peace and calm. However, for those more purposeful in nature, Ayurveda therapies and Yoga classes are available. The Ayurveda is administered by Dr Srilal Mudunkothge, an acclaimed practitioner of this ancient, holistic medical art, while the Yoga classes are led by some of the world's leading Yoga teachers.

We would also like you to see Ulpotha through the eyes of some of our former guests - people who have experienced Ulpotha just as you will. Before booking a holiday we recommend you read the following A Fortnight in Ulpotha - a personal impression of Ulpotha written by author and broadcaster, Moyra Bremner.

A FORTNIGHT IN ULPOTHA - by MOYRA BREMNER

'Paradise' is the word guests most often use to describe this unique, mountain-ringed haven in the heart of Sri Lanka. It's a secluded hideaway where you live in elegant simplicity, close to nature, in adobe houses nestling among flowers and trees, swim in a lake half-smothered in tiny water lilies, and eat delicious food lounging on cushions like an emperor.

For me, the atmosphere was the highlight. It takes about 18-24 guests and seems to attract original and interesting people, of all ages and both solo and married, in the arts, media and professions. Some are paying guests, others friends of the owners. As everyone mixes and is treated like a friend, it feels like a very well run, and delightfully informal, house party where generosity comes naturally and one is cherished, not waited on. So it's a place with a lot of highs and very few lows.

Having been a place of pilgrimage for centuries the land itself has a profound, almost spiritual, tranquillity. It seems to invite you to let go and luxuriate in its gentle beauty - and in just being yourself, without the trappings and labels of modern life.

Moveable Feasts:
As a foodie one of the great joys of Ulpotha was its food. The main meals are eaten in a white, Sri Lankan manor house where jewel colours set off the carefully placed antique furniture and works of art. It was featured in 'The World of Interiors' and the elegant simplicity and use of colour make it look almost like a film set.

The dining room is an 'ambalama' - a large room, open to the breeze, its roof supported by pillars. You eat lounging, like a Roman emperor, on the wide, brilliantly cushioned, wall-bench which runs round three sides. Trays of mouth watering curries - perhaps green mango curry with coconut milk, garlic curry, or a stunning aubergine (egg plant) curry - are laid out with salads, sambals, appetisers, and side dishes, on a huge cream banana leaf mat which fills the floor. So you just help yourself, as often as you like.

After the curries there are luscious tropical fruits and buffalo milk yoghurt with kitul syrup - which is rather like maple syrup. There are also fruit juices made from some delicious wild fruit which you may taste nowhere else.

Breakfast is at the other end of the drive, in the kade - the little open-plan house which is Ulpotha's main chat room. You can breakfast from 7-12 on the best bananas I've ever eaten, tea, freshly baked Sri Lankan snacks and a tasty local soup -- oddly called porridge. In fact, in the kade, you can lounge around nibbling delicious Sri Lankan snacks all day long. For fresh nibbles appear in the afternoon and there's always someone there to slice the top off a king coconut, with a machete, and give you a glass of its water.

The other great chat room is the open-plan guest kitchen in the main house where you can make yourself coffee or English-style tea, at any time - and some guests spent hours round its table.

The one thing that isn't abundant is alcohol. Whenever there's a party there's more than enough - at no charge. Apart from that, it isn't usually provided. But nobody seems to miss it although, as there's no bar, some people do bring their own, or buy local beer or arrak.

A Room With A View:
Ulpotha is a garden and a farm and in one but, with everything done the traditional way, there are no chemicals and no machinery. The bedrooms are little adobe houses in separate clearings among the lush mingling of tropical trees and shrubs, which produce the farm's fruit nuts. The sandy paths are shaded by coconut palms and fringed with brilliant hibisicus and the vegetable plots are bright with sunflowers and marigolds. So it feels rather like living in the Garden of Eden.

Each house is a double room with a difference. The furnishings are simple and thoughtful. Mosquito nets cover the beds. A curvaceous terracotta pot, topped with a coconut cup, provides pure spring water to drink. here are ample cupboards, piles of softly coloured floor cushions invite lounging beside a low table and every day there's a fresh bowl of floating flowers. The soft natural tones set off the brilliant 'wallpaper of the natural world. True to Sri Lankan tradition the immaculate and sweetly scented loos and showers are in separate buildings. For, the only wall is behind the beds, and privacy is provided by bamboo blinds and the low sweep of the palm-leaf roof.

Delicious Indolence:
It is, above all, a place to relax and find peace and the only rule seems to be that there aren't any rules - unless you count an unwritten rule to treat everything and everyone with gentle respect and tolerance. Yet, there is a rhythm to the days. There are usually daily yoga classes in a big, breezy, open-sided, building with a palm leaf roof, or in the dappled shade beneath the trailing aerial roots of a huge banyan tree. Ulpotha attracts some world-class yoga instructors. So some guests go there for the yoga - and coil themselves into amazing positions. However, teachers set their own schedules, teaching one or two classes a day, according to what people want. Some also lead dawn or sunset walks in the surrounding hills.

I enjoyed the yoga and heard the walks were glorious. But they are both optional and, having overslept a few classes, discovered nobody is an outsider for missing them, for Ulpotha's main activities are swimming, walking, reading, snoozing and paddling about in boats. This is a place to unwind, be gentle with yourself, live close to nature and simply be, not a place where you have to exercise and strive.

Perfect Peace:
One of the lovely things about Ulpotha was that it's equally easy to find both companionship and solitude. When you want to be alone there are the inviting hammocks slung around the grounds, two tree houses, or a secluded little ambalama overlooking the lake. . Best of all there's a romantic little house on stilts in the far side of the lake where privacy is guaranteed - there's only one canoe to take you there. All these hideaways have urns of pure spring water, oil lamps, mattresses and bedding. So they're perfect for a siesta or even a night of total solitude. This makes Ulpotha a great place for creative people to think - or even work. When I was there one Hollywood writer hid away in the lake house for days, emerging only for meals - blissed out and saying it was 'every child's dream'.

Sri Lankan's are good at sleeping wherever they are. So, in keeping with this tradition, guests are encouraged to spend the occasional night in one of hideaways, so they can experience waking to sunrise on the lake - or simply a new freedom.

Eastern Indulgence:
One of the special features of Ulpotha is that, . if you want to be pampered massages, ayurvedic herbal or hot oil treatments are free. The health centre offers an interesting combination of east and west, modern and traditional for, though the herbal treatments are Sri Lankan the massage is by Europeans.

Ulpotha sits in the oldest continually inhabited area of Sri Lanka, which is a treasure house of traditional remedies. So its soothing steam baths and hot oil treatments use the ancient ayurvedic herbal remedies still found in local village medicine and made from herbs that are grown at Ulpotha or gathered in the surrounding woods. unfortunately I visited Ulpotha too soon to experience Ulpotha's latest innovation. I hear it's an appointment with, Mr Chandrasekara - one of the region's most respected ayurvedic experts. That must be fascinating. For the ayurvedic tradition sees a unity in mind and body and reads' them in a totally different way from Western medicine.

The Birds And The Bees:
Although indolence is Ulpotha's keynote it's also a nature lover's and walker's dream. The energetic find endless hills to climb and woods to walk, and a garden designer among the guests seemed entranced by the plants. For wildlife, as for people, the area is a place of safety so, just walking to breakfast, I watched a monitor lizard sunbathing while exotic birds landed only feet away.

However, the restless spirits not interested in wildlife borrowed Ulpotha's bikes and cycled the deeply rutted path to the nearest village to buy a few - very few - bare necessities and phone their loved ones from the public phone. For one of few problems at Ulpotha is a complete lack of phones, and surrounding mountains which make most mobiles fail.

A Touch Of Magic:
The most magical evening of my stay was when we all sat in the darkness, watching buffalo thresh the new rice crop in the cool of the night. I felt like a time traveller as they slowly circled, treading it under their hooves, as they had for thousands of years, lit only by flickering candle light.

Ulpotha keeps alive the traditional rituals of seed time and harvest, and I watched, next morning, as rice was ritually cooked and spread on flower-decorated banana leaves, in thanks for this God-given harvest, before being shared round the village in celebration.

Such things are part of the fabric of Ulpotha's life, not a show put on for tourists. Here tradition is lived, celebration and gratitude seem to come naturally, and the practical and the spiritual are deeply interwoven. So respect for nature, and everything that lives, is a daily act of reverence - and you can feel it in the whole atmosphere of the place and the thoughtfulness with which you are looked after.

Pleasures And Pastimes:
Party nights are nights to remember. The owners seem to sense when everyone is in the mood for dancing and suddenly say, 'How about a party tonight?' By nightfall, bottles of arrak have been mustered and rugs and cushions laid out on the flat rocks by the lake, or under the enormous banyan tree. Dancing in the moonlight is to the music of a remarkably talented village band, or CD's powered by a car battery.

Some of the great sights of Sri Lanka are within reach, among them Dambulla and a Buddhist monastery with some of the oldest archaeological remains in the country. So, at least once a week, there's a spur of the moment picnic or a visit to a historic site. These outings are free, apart from the admission fee to wherever you visit. But whether you pile into the minibus and jolt off - over the less than wonderful roads - or stay and savour the even greater quiet when others have gone, is entirely up to you.

I arrived at Ulpotha intending to see all the magnificent sights within reach. But the place soon worked its magic and the 'shoulds' fell away, leaving only a desire to relish the peace around me. So don't be surprised if you find that your desire to sight see melts away, like mist in sunlight. After all, there's always next time. Some of my fellow guests were on their third visit and it's a place that's hard to visit only once - if you've a taste for magic.

Ulpotha is unique. It neither teaches nor preaches yet, for some, just staying there is life changing

Money Matters:
One of things I like enormously is that everything within Ulpotha, from the moment you arrive till the moment you leave, is included in the fee. You don't even pay for treatments at the health centre - and there's no tipping. You are even given a sarong on arrival. If you take the right flight transport to and from the airport is also included. So, once there, you hardly need money - except for shopping. For Ulpotha sell the most gorgeous sarongs I've ever seen and there are hand weaving centres not far away and an irresistible shop, called Barefoot, in Columbo which, if you overnight in Columbo before flying home, is ideal for buying presents.

Continent or Region: Indian Subcontinent

Country or State/County: Sri Lanka

Ayurveda
At Ulpotha you will find treatments are based on the ancient Vedic wisdom found in local village medicine. The region around Ulpotha is the oldest continually inhabited area of Sri Lanka, and it retains much of the ancient healing wisdom of the sages. The special herbs used for the traditional steam bath, or infused into warm oil treatments, which mesmerise, sooth and calm, have been valued in this area for thousands of years.

All the yoga, massage and native village treatments are included in the cost of your holiday. Full Ayurvedic packages ranging from one week to four week treatments are also available at an additional cost subject to a free consultation with our Ayurvedic doctor. Please go to our Ayurveda page to learn more about what is on offer.

Yoga
Many of the UK's most respected yoga teachers come to Ulpotha. As the teachers usually change every fortnight several types of yoga - usually Hatha, Sivananda, Iyengar and Astanga - are available at different times in the season. If you are keen on doing yoga we recommend you look at Our Yoga Programmes to see which teacher is coming before you book. Every morning there's usually an optional yoga class in a large, open-sided building with a palm leaf roof, or in the cool dappled shade of a banyan tree. Some teach one class a day, others two and some run separate classes for yoga students of different standards. Many also guide early morning walks in the beautifully wooded surrounding hills. If you are coming from the UK it may be worth trying out a class in Britain or talking to the teachers who teach at Ulpotha before deciding when you'll book.

As Ulpotha attracts some world-class yoga instructors some guests go mainly for the yoga classes. But it isn't primarily a yoga centre, there's no pressure to attend classes and life doesn't hinge on classes of any kind. So you won't feel an outsider if yoga isn't for you. This is a place to unwind, be gentle with yourself, live close to nature and simply be, rather than a place to exercise and strive.

Massage
The western massage treatments range from Thai or deep tissue massage, to Shiatsu, or full-body oil massage. They are done by fully qualified massage therapists from Europe and massage styles change from month to month, as Ulpotha uses different massage experts each month. So, if you yearn for a particular type of massage, it's wise to ask when it's available before booking your holiday. All the massage therapies and treatments in Ulpotha are free and each guest is guaranteed at least 2 massages during their two-week stay and sometimes more depending on how full the group is. Please note though that if you are undergoing an Ayurveda programme the doctor may advise you not to have any Western massage therapies that may interfere with your treatment.

Swimming, Walking, Cycling
There is a large and beautiful lake at Ulpotha which provides excellent swimming and boating opportunities. Walks in the hills and mountains surrounding the lake and up to the nearby Buddhist temple are easy to do and bicycles are available for exploring the surruounding areas.

Excursions
Every week either a half-day or a full-day outing to some of Sri Lanka's intriguing ancient cultural sites is organised from Ulpotha on which you are welcome to participate.

Each of Ulpotha's two week holidays is lead by an internationally renowned Yoga teacher.