Mangrove Garden, For the Crusoe-like beach experience

Red Dot has always loved the mixture of accommodation available in Sri Lanka and we regularly create tailormade itineraries using guesthouses, beach cabanas and eco retreats. Well, a few weeks ago we made a welcome discovery: Mangrove Garden. We’d heard about it for a while, but our sales team likes to visit all properties and when the team arrived in Tangalle we were thrilled to find a beach cabana property capable of giving our clients the authentic simple, Crusoe-like beach experience. The property is a few km’s east of Tangalle near Rekuwa. The drive takes you around a lagoon and down dusty tracks. But the journey is well-worth it. Laxman, the genial manager, was there to greet the team warmly and soon ushered into the timber-built restaurant for drinks.

Afterwards we explored the beach – wow…one of the best in Sri Lanka. It’s called Madilla Beach. It was clean and about 50m wide. A natural rock formation has created a safe pool in the shallow waters for swimming. The property has five wooden cabanas right on the beach. Each cabana has a double bedroom, steps leading down to a lower level bathroom with a hot water shower. The cabanas are furnished with timber double beds fitted with mosquito netting and have overhead fans. As Madilla is adjoining to the Rekawa beach clients can walk down to observe the turtle nesting in the night. Even the Mangrove Garden Beach Cabanas offers good opportunities for bird watching as we saw plenty of migratory Waders near the shallow pools of the lagoons.