Gall Face Hotel, Colombo, Sri Lanka

We spent quite a few weeks in this hotel.

This is a very old hotel on the beach, with breathtaking views. The staircases are very old and stylish, the corridors wide and the ancient elevators manually operated. I loved the elevators! The whole lobby area is very spacious and open. You are never truly inside.

The restaurant on the ocean view veranda is lovely. We spent long hours there every day, having meetings and lunch and dinner. They have high tea every afternoon, which is tea with a simple all-you-can-eat cold buffet. Our friends loved coming over for high tea.

Our room was as large a dance hall. Seriously, this was the biggest non-suite hotel room we ever had! I think we had six windows, four on one side and two on the other. I believe all the rooms are different in this hotel.

The room had a view of the ocean and had very old style furniture. It had a TV, phone, some A/C (I think 76 F was the lowest we could get) and a ceiling fan. I loved the room in spite of all its imperfections.

The bathroom didn’t have hot water the first week, then someone came and fixed it. Hot water didn’t seem to be very common in Sri Lanka.

The hotel had a business center, car rental (with driver), travel desk and all that. I recommend the tuk-tuks (three wheeler taxies) for local transport, they are a lot of fun. They try to charge you double if you’ve got white skin so beware.