GUEST HOUSE THREE: Colonial House

 A garden reflecting pool collected the next door temple's Stupa as we arrived at our third & last last stay in Rohan's guest houses -- called Colonial House, although I do not know the history behind that name. It had several houses. Ours was dubbed The Doll House... probably because of its rather diminutive size. Still, it was large in the department of his usual pizzazz!

It was a pavilion of shimmering colors... seeming to float on a koi pond

 

 

A marching rail car of shower & water closet... with a handsome painting, closed with old mirrored doors. Oh... also was hung with a delicate chandelier.

I made this selfie in this collection of iridescent lamps & a bird cage hanging in front of a huge mirror, above a tile plateau which served as seat & luggage rack... lacking any closet. 

 Tall doors opened from the entry & bedroom directly onto Koi ponds

 

Pathways of irregular stone too newly laid wandered though the grounds to the other separate suites. On our way to Joel & Nana's, we passed more of the enameled Tire advertisement signs which were displayed in the dining room at Bentota, bringing Rohan's aesthetic full circle through our rondo of our three guest houses.

I walked to explore the grounds, much of the landscaping being recently renewed,... passing Joel & Nana's bungalow where our dinner table will be set, under both chandelier & disco ball... this dinner will mark the end of our Sri Lankan sojourn. Tomorrow we four will remeet in Bali!

 

 Their suite was formally even more quirky... possibly called the "Government Dispensary" as the salvaged sign at its entrance might suggest. By now we know to expect the unexpected!

 It was another pastiche of multiple found-object tastes.

 With a commode I love to seriously ponder...

Just a few steps away we found a delightful swimming pool where the four of us played before dinner. Edward had a very early flight home to San Francisco, which set up our next week in Bali.

Warm showers before we meet back for dinner...

The two old friends who masterminded this travel... Joel & Stephen, chatted  plans for the last part of it... The four of us fly to their home in Bali for a week.

Sri Lanka/CEYLON ... TEA!

Tea is botanically camillia senensis. The plant first grew in southern China & Burma & it has spread over Southeast Asia & fanned into a deep history around the world.  The "earlier" (British) name for Sri Lanka was Ceylon... carried forward as a common nomenclature for many teas from the island nation. 

I had an early love of tea when I was in high school... before I came to prefer drinking coffee in college, as being more "adult"...  generally available & later becoming its own obsession... I've mostly ignored tea for decades.

Curiously, my tastes have taken a turn back as I came to enjoy tea again on our trip to Sri Lanka... even though the coffee there was also very good! Since returning home, both Stephen & I are regularly choosing tea. 

Leaving Bentota after five nights, we were invited to stop at the home a brother of Nabeel, the very handsome & equally affable liaison of the owner of Boutique 98 (plus two other guest houses Joel had booked for this trip).

He became one of our favorites. The brother had a tea plantation with a beautiful home, also a brand new guest-house. We were traveling/moving about in a new... or being-restored economy, underpinned by deep & valuable history. Happily fresh version of hospitality!   

Tea was served... we chuckled when seeing the tag... but yes, the tea in these bags was grown here!

The very modern house crowns a hill, tea plantings dropping down the hillsides.  Idyllic.

'Reminds one of Tuscany...

We seem a little of  "California cousins casual" in our traveling duds...

While we all at various times vied for his eyes' attentions, we ultimately celebrated losing out to his young twin daughters... Lucky all!

 

I plucked my own tea bud on the walk down from the house to the parking.

A simple beauty of botany... with quite a story!

 We're off to find more spice!

But... next stop: Galle, an old Portuguese Fort... 

GUEST HOUSE TWO: SINHAGIRI -- Part Two...

    

In the previous post, I left us in the bouquet of a dining room when I decided I was overdosing us with this house's collection(s). I've since mostly given up on any expectation to control my excesses (I am multiplicities of those as well... of course!) If you have read much of this blog, you know that!

 

Over the mantle a gong hung in a stand of two horns... bringing along that motif of our collector/designer of Boutique 98, the first guest house, in Bentota by the beach.

  

The sunflower so symbolic of my Kansas farm-boy youth, which helped to ground me inside all this exotic atmosphere... at least a little bit...

 But, look where I am! Through an inviting doorway from the dining room during one of the rare hours of bright daylight lies a... named by our host, "Saloon"! Not particularly grand, except in size. Not architecturally cohesive with the rest of the house. When I asked if it were a ballroom, he exclaimed that it was an odd collection of storage sheds, which he'd replaced or unified into this Playroom... Both Ballroom & Barn!

...which at night became a collection of patina & reflection... with a pair of billiard tables holding a mirrored unreality.

Intimate spaces for conversation... furnished with second-hand found style renewed in functional manner, much for effect. Crazy bits were the sparkly plush pillows with fringe of feathers!

An "Oriental" Inglenook had been invented like the stage-set it was out of lathe lattice & red paint, corniced by an over-sized Art Deco frieze -- very handsome!

 

...repeated in reflections of even deeper intimacy...
 

The pastiche of numerous overlaid carpets pleased both eyes & feet...

 

& of course we are where the horns would reappear!

Our mysterious host, when we met him at morning tea time had invited us for cocktails & dinner that evening. 

Rohan proves to be an immediately captivating Mad Hatter!

 

 He could not be anything less than a fully immersive host for the fete...

This was a memorable event for we, by now seasoned & recently a bit bedraggled travelers... were more than happy to party!

 In the end, I came to better know Rohan's notions... including the name of this venue as a Saloon...

Dinner began with soup... served in bowls designed like hot water bottles, sealed with corks.

After being invited to tour his private apartment-- we trundled down the red corridor to our rooms:  Peony... Rose... Lily...

We picked up our hats, & ventured back into the rain.