Hikkaduwa

Sri Lanka is a magical place of ancient Buddhist monuments, gorgeous beaches, lush green vegetation, clear blue skies, sunshine and friendly faces. The beach house at Hikkaduwa is a great place to unwind, sample the local surfing and diving opportunities, and from where you can then start to explore this stunningly beautiful island.

Hikkaduwa

Hikkaduwa is located 100km south of the country's capital, Colombo. The area is well-known for its coral sanctuary and the proximity of wonderful scuba diving sites to explore. With its unique beach culture, Hikkaduwa has long been the most popular diving and surfing area in Sri Lanka. In the centre of Hikkaduwa, a lagoon also creates a beautiful and safe snorkelling area. Further south, where the currents are stronger, surfing is the dominant water activity. The impressive coral reef runs just offshore and is populated by exotic fish and sea turtles that come ashore on this beach to lay their eggs.

Hikkaduwa: Eating and Drinking

• Sukhawathi Vegetarian Restaurant: Just opposite. Serves award-winning fusion vegetarian cuisine as well as offering Ayurvedic treatments. Arrangements can be made for food to be delivered directly to you at the beach house.
• Blue Moon Restaurant: This very romantic, two-storey beachside restaurant just south of the main surf break serves very well prepared food and has great sea views.
• Loretta's & Lorretta's on the Beach: Delicious Western food lovingly prepared by a very attentive Austrian owner who takes his cooking very seriously indeed!
• Roger's Garage: Right next door to Loretta's! Very reasonably priced food served in a relaxed bar. They have pool tables, board games and play nightly movies.
• Neela's: Nice reliable, value for money, day time fare right in middle of the Narigama sunbathing.
• The Spaghetti Restaurant: Serves traditional Italian food and lovely oven-baked Italian pizzas.
• The Nature Resort Floating Restaurant: Just a few kilometres inland from Hikkaduwa. Eat a freshly-caught crab meal as you enjoy a lakeside sunset or take a few drinks with you and go for a slow trip around the lake on a floating pontoon!
• The Refresh Restaurant: In town, on the beachside. It's a popular restaurant that serves a very wide variety of food.
• Vibrations: A really nicely laid out 'jungle-side' nightclub. Look out for Janaka and his band and their extremely talented drum playing! Friday is their big night.
• Mambos, Top Secret, Why Not: Very similar and locally popular beachside nightclubs. They also become the focus of a lot of daytime surfer activity.

Hikkaduwa: Surfing and Diving

Diving

The diving at Hikkaduwa is diverse and there is an abundance of marine life and dive sites to suit all levels of experience. Big groupers, barracudas, moray eels, dogtooth tunas, manta rays, lobsters & turtles are often to be seen just off the coast at Hikkaduwa. A large number of wrecks have floundered off the coast in this area over the years, adding to the range of dive sites available. The diving season in the south west runs from November to April and there are a number of well-established diving centres from which to choose with Blue Deep being one of the best!

Surfing

Hikkaduwa is a very well known surfing destination on the international circuit and annually attracts surfers from all over the world. There are plenty of good surfing points and although most of them are reef breaks, none of them is risky since they all have a flat deep bottom. The wave size ranges up to 3 metres during the season. The main point, known as the main reef has 'A-frame' shaped waves, which can be surfed in both directions.