Where to stay near Dikwella, area by area

Around Dikwella you choose between four areas: Hiriketiya for surf and company, Dikwella bay for space and town life, Batheegama for quiet, and Nilwella for a fishing village. They are minutes apart, so you can sleep in one and spend your days in another.

This is a guide to areas more than to hotels. We have not slept in the hotels and will not review them: the three we name by our bay are described from their own listings. Here the area decides the holiday more than the room does: the four lie along a few kilometres of coast, yet one has music in the evening and another has only the sea. So first ask what you want to hear when you wake up.

Hiriketiya, for surf and company

Hiriketiya is the small horseshoe bay about 2 km east of Dikwella town, and it is where most places to stay are found. They range from hostels to design hotels, around the bay and up the lanes behind it.

• What is at the door: the surf, with lessons on the sand. Cafes, restaurants, small shops, yoga studios, and people to talk to.
• What to know: the bay is small and popular. From December to March it is busy, and guides note that it can be loud at night near the beach. Places a few hundred metres back from the sand are calmer.
• Who it suits: surfers, people who travel alone, and couples who like to walk to dinner and choose on the way.

Dikwella bay, for space and town life

Dikwella's own beach is a long, wide arc of sand behind the town. Guesthouses and small hotels are spread along it and in the streets inland. The eastern end, Pehebiya, has a few cafes and bars on the sand and is nearest to Hiriketiya.

• What is at the door: a beach with room on it, sunsets, and a real town. There are shops, a bus stand and a market, with a railway station about ten minutes inland.
• What to know: the town beach is not patrolled and accounts of the swimming differ, so ask locally. The main coast road runs through town, so ask whether your room faces it.
• Who it suits: people who stay a week or more and want daily life around them, travellers who use buses and trains, and anybody who would like Hiriketiya close but not under the window.

Batheegama, for quiet

Batheegama is the village on the west side of Dikwella, by the bay that visitors call Turtle Beach. Guides describe it as quieter and more out of the way than either the town beach or Hiriketiya. There are guesthouses close to the sand and one larger resort.

• What is at the door: a calm round bay with a reef, where wild sea turtles often feed. Palms, village lanes, and not much else, which is the reason to choose it.
• What to know: there is no row of cafes to stroll along and no surf. Evenings are early. Sea urchins live in the rocks, so walk in where the sand is clear.
• Who it suits: families, couples of every age, readers, and people who work for part of the day.

This is our bay, and Ohana is here, open every day from 08:00 to 21:00: if you stay in Batheegama, we can be your breakfast table and your beach. Three places to stay close to us:

• Dickwella Resort & Spa. The larger resort on the Batheegama headland, on the eastern side of our bay. Its listings name a pool, a children's pool, a spa and sea views. It suits families who like everything inside one hotel.
• Orca Dickwella. A small guest house a few steps from Batheegama beach, with a garden, sea views and air-conditioned rooms. It suits people who want a simple room close to the sand.
• Parasol Doré. A boutique hotel of three rooms in Batheegama, with a pool and a garden. Listings disagree on whether it is open now, so write to it before you plan.

Nilwella, and a little further out

Nilwella is just east of Hiriketiya. It has a working fishing harbour, where the boats bring in the catch in the early morning, and Blue Beach Island, a small island joined to the shore by a sandbar. It is a village of fishermen before it is a resort, and Hiriketiya is a short ride away for cafes. It suits people who have been to this coast before and want a simpler, more local stay.

Further out, three more places are calm: Mawella, about 15 minutes east, with a long beach and a lagoon; Talalla, up to half an hour west, a wide bay with yoga retreats; and Tangalle, about half an hour east, with quiet coves.

Can you stay somewhere quiet and come to us for the day?

Yes. Come after 08:00 for breakfast, take a sunbed or a hammock under the palms, swim with a mask over the reef, and stay for dinner with the last light. From Hiriketiya we are less than five minutes by road, and we can send a tuk-tuk to a hotel nearby, for 300 to 1,500 LKR depending on the distance.

From further away, the day is described in a day trip to Dikwella.

What should you ask before you book?

• How far is the beach on foot, and is the way lit at night?
• What do I hear at night? Music, the road, or the sea.
• Is there air conditioning, or a fan? Nights stay near 24 or 25 degrees.
• Is the Wi-Fi good enough to work on?
• Can you arrange a tuk-tuk, and a transfer from the airport?

For moving between the areas, read getting around Hiriketiya and Dikwella. If the question is really which mood you want, read Hiriketiya or Dikwella. The rest of the planning is in our Dikwella and Hiriketiya travel guide.

Good to know

• Ohana is at Turtle Beach, Dikwella, less than five minutes by road from Hiriketiya. We are a beach club and restaurant, not a hotel.
• We are open every day. Breakfast is served from 08:00 to 11:00, lunch and dinner from 11:00 to 21:00.
• Sunbeds are free for the whole day, one for each person, when each person spends 10,000 LKR on food and drinks; otherwise they cost 1,000 LKR an hour each. A towel comes with every sunbed.
• No alcohol is served. Filtered water is on the house, and snorkel masks are lent free.