On the way back from Jaffna we drove to Kandalama to visit Geoffrey Bawa’s beautiful hotel, Heritance Kandalama. The hotel didn’t have any availability thanks to the cricket matches being played at Dambulla and the large number of tourists coming to Sri Lanka these days. I’ve only been here a few months and even I have noticed a dramatic increase in the number of tourists. But I was bummed we didn’t get stay here. Next time.
View from Heritance Kandalama
Kandalama
Adventures in Serendipity 
Definitely go back! We really enjoyed it. Your thing about Dambulla cracked me up too… isn’t the giant gold Buddha really over the top? My favorite part were the little fake monks all lined up along the side.