AVOID the Samudra Guest House in Polonnaruwa

On the recommendation of the Lonely Planet, we decided to stay at the Samudra Guest House as they could organise a jeep safari for us to see wild elephants at the Kaudulla National Park. I don't deny the digs were cheap at 600 rupees/room, but cheap turned out to equal NASTY! The hospitality was definitely lacking. It was a major drama to get some towels & bedsheets, and the room upon closer inspection was quite filthy. And the lady of the house denied our request for a pot of tea (which we would have paid for) as she couldn't get off her fat rear from the TV lounge. Despite this, we ploughed ahead with our plans to visit Kaudulla the next morning. What was supposed to be a 4-hour tour for 3500 rupees, ended up only being 2.5 hours. Upon complaining to the owners, we were immediately threatened and insulted, and then summarily marched to the Polonnaruwa Tourist Police. The police didn't take us "women" seriously and thought it was all a huge joke. Their verdict was that we pay up, or go to the courts. We decided to pay up to get rid of the owner (who had been hurling insults at us all this time) and asked to lodge an official complaint. The police had an even better laugh over that request. We thought to ourselves - "Enough already" - and decided to leave & try to forget the whole nasty business. In no way do I blame Lonely Planet. What annoyed me more than anything is that as their guesthouse was in the LP guidebook, the owners knew that they only had to sit back and wait for the foreigners to show up and then proceed to rip them off. You'd think with the Tamil Tigers scaring tourists away they'd be happy to accommodate us, but NO, they could only short-sightedly think of their greed. Travellers don't seem to have any rights in Sri Lanka - the only power we have is word of mouth and the internet.

Woh! that's pretty awful.

For 600 rupees a night - you get 600 rupee service.

In Sri Lanka, as elsewhere - in Asia especially - ask questions about services you are considering purchasing. Confirm information when starting a trip, with the actual provider. Take nothing for granted.

obione980, Asking a question doesn't guarantee an Honest answer,especially in Asia.

I would send a Formal written complaint about Police Attitude to Commissioner of Police in Colombo & send copy to Minister for
Tourism.

Maybe a Phantom Booking for 20 people Could be in Order.

Glad to see you took the time to Post your Displeasure of your treatment.

Rgds - vandy

Maybe a letter to one of the local papers...???

We spent one night in the Samudra Guest House in Polonnaruwa two weeks ago.

It was very cheap, 1500 Rs for a 3 person room. This is by far the cheapest place we've ever stayed in or heard of during our one month (!!) stay in Sri Lanka. The sheets were clean, for a small extra fee you can get towels and a breakfast. The breakfast is exceptionally tasty - it is the same as almost everywhere, toast, eggs, tea or coffee, but it is well prepared and the bread is also very good (which is really not usual in Sri Lanka).

We didn't have much problem with the rooms, we had ants in the shower and in one of the rooms, and somebody saw a gekko, but that was all. The mattresses were not the best, but they were good for a night's sleep. All beds have mosquito nets.
We were not able to get warm water from the shower, but this could have been our mistake as well. We didn't ask why there was not warm water.
Of course these would have been problems in a 30 USD/person hotel room, but not in a 5 USD/person guest house.

The people were nice, and the house itself was nice and clean as well.

Regarding the safari, we asked for quotations from 3 different places and went with the best price. Samudra was one of the places we asked for safari, and their quotation was not good (6000 Rs - we went with a 4500 Rs quote), so we didn't go with them.
All safaris are usually 2.5-3 hours long, simply because there are two few-hours time periods, one in the morning and one in the evening when you can really see animals. The travel was 1 hour there, 1 hour back, so that's how it lasted slightly more then 4 hours. This was the same in Yala. I don't think the ladies with the bad safari experience really knew what is what and how things work, neither how to handle problems with Sri Lankans.

All in all, the Samudra Guest House has a correct service for the price they ask (especially the breakfast). A hotel is of course much better, but much more expensive as well.

2010 - 2007!!?

Original post from a one time ever poster - probably a 'commercial' plant!!

Last post - 3 years later - from a one time ever poster - probably.......................

Here is our - bad - experience at Samudra's : we arrived at Samudra's to rent some bikes : we negociated the rental at 200 rps per bike, which seems to be a good price compared to what Siyanco holiday resort was offering us (400 rps). Then we talked about going to Safari and taking a room with AC : 4500 rps for Safari and 2500 for the room with AC. When we visited the room everything seemed ok and the shower had a water heater to provide hot water. We had to ask to get soap and towels, which were provided for free. But when we come back in the night, there was not hot water. We asked why and the boss first answered that it was broken. When we insisted, he said we had to pay more for hot water ! We argued that we saw hot water when visiting the room but he (a little bit drunk and very agressive) and her lady said it was broken. Confused by the situation, we talked about going to the police but they did not seem impressed at all. The guest house was empty while Manel guest house had many visitors at the same time : I definitely advise not to go to Samudra !

Follow up : we just had the breakfast and we had 2 slices of bread and coffee. That's all ! And BTW, although we paid a total bill of around 8500 rps alltogether, they want us to pay for toilet paper !

Having just returned from a three week trip in Sri Lanka, I wish I'd read this thread before leaving. We chose to stay in Samudra, which was the 'Top pick' in the newly published LP and mentioned the owners were able to organise safari's in Minneriya National Park. It was by far the worse place we stayed, the owners want money and nothing else and I wouldn't recommend to others.
We paid 3000Rs for a room with aircon, which seemed fairly reasonable (we paid as much as 4500 and as little as 2500 for similar rooms elsewhere). When we arrived, the owner also asked us if we wanted to do a safari as his brother was taking a group in the afternoon. Currently they were only two people and if we joined them it would reduce the price for everyone. He did some calculations to show us how good value this was (5000Rs pp for everything - guide, travel, entrance etc.). In hindsight, we should have checked other places but he seemed genuine and as it had been recommended by LP, we just went for it.
The tour itself was amazing, we saw groups of 20-30 elephants and the guide was very knowledgeable, taking us to parts of the park where there were no other jeeps but lots of wildlife. However, it soon became apparent that we'd been ripped off about the price. For starters, there were not two other people, but 5, which put the owners calculations out. But the worst part - the others all paid 4000Rs for exactly the same trip.
As for the room, yes it did have working aircon, but that was the only positive feature. There were ants in the bathroom, a piece of soap that looked like it'd been there for more than a year, the room was dirty and we even had to clean large cobwebs from inside the mosquito net before using it. No towels were offered and there was no breakfast or dinner - when we returned from Safari, the place was completely deserted and we ended up going out to find a place to eat.
We checked out the next morning and when we asked the owner about the safari price he gave a look of fake surprise and told us he'd been told there were only two other passengers on the safari, which was how the price was calculated. We knew this was a lie, because the original group of people who had booked the safari were a group of 3.
Given the dates on previous posts in this thread, it's clear that Samudra has been recommended in LP for a long time. How this can be still be listed as the top choice given the reviews here, the state of the place and the unfriendly owners is beyond me.