The Coconut Gardens

Try driving along the B35. Chances are you will then be allowed to slalom between elephants.

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The Coconut Gardens Tissamaharama

Wild elephants so close you can almost touch them, water buffalo shamelessly taking hours of mud baths and wild bears, Yala National Park has it all. The main reason to travel to Tissa is to visit this beautiful park.

We want to spend 2 days in Tissa so that we can also relax a bit here. We will do this at The Coconut Gardens Hotel & Restaurant, where we enjoyed a beautiful cabin and a lovely pool.

Yala National Park

You can choose to spend 1 night in Tissa, as there is nothing else to do here. We think the downside is that you have to travel on the day of your safari, having got up at 4:30. We are therefore glad that we were able to enjoy this nice place for the rest of the day and explore the town a bit.

We really liked The Coconut Gardens. The cabins are very spacious and clean, internet is stable and breakfast is excellent. The hotel itself has a very cool jeep with which they run safaris and have an excellent driver. Together with the guide, he made a good team. He drove carefully (unlike some colleagues) and they took the time to show us all the hotspots of Yala National Park.

Are you coming to Tissa from Ella? Or are you coming to Ella from Tissa? Then try taking the B35. Chances are you’ll then get to slalom between elephants. Got a bunch of bananas with you? Then you’ll make friends along the way too.

Cabin The Coconut Gardens

The cabin at The Coconut Gardens & Restaurant is very nice. It is a kind of tall house with 2 floors, with us sleeping upstairs. Our room could accommodate four people, so it was very large and had plenty of power outlets and a spacious shower that gets nice and hot. And that’s a luxury in Sri Lanka.

Also, the cabin is clean, new and has stable Wi Fi. From the balcony you have views over the park, pool and Tissa Lake.

Price of The Coconut Gardens

We paid €70.00 per night (Nov 2023) for The Coconut Gardens & Restaurant. This price includes breakfast and does not include our safari in Yala National Park. This tour costs €180 for two people.

Location The Coconut Gardens Hotel & Restaurant

The location of The Coconut Gardens Hotel & Restaurant is okay. There is virtually nothing to do in Tissa, so the location is also not a big deal.

We were able to walk to Tissa Road where the necessary restaurants are located, but you shouldn’t imagine too much of that either. This time, we mainly enjoyed ourselves in and around the pool, which is really fine!

Yala National Park safari

With our overnight stays, we immediately booked a tour of the Yala National park. We paid 180,- euros for a private tour for 2 people.

Our luck could not be better that day. After a rainy night, we drove through the park in bright sunshine. Our guide Indika tells us that the animals often come out after the rain to warm up in the sun. And he is right, it turns out.

We spot crocodiles, elephants, a leopard, a wild bear, water buffalo, wild boar, monkeys and all kinds of birds. We are really lucky to see wild bear and leopard, as this is very unusual for this season.

On the way to the hotel, several more (wild) foxes walk along the road and here too our driver stops so we can have a good look at them.

Seeing how fast some jeeps drove through the park, we were glad we booked through our hotel. At leisure, we drive through the park. It takes an hour longer than planned – we are back at 11 o’clock – but we are very happy with that afterwards.

The Coconut Gardens Hotel breakfast

During our stay at The Coconut Gardens Hotel, we get two types of breakfast. A breakfast for during the Yala tour, a packed lunch, and a normal breakfast, as you are used to at the hotel. Having experienced during our trip that local breakfasts are usually better, we asked for one.

Lunch to-go

Our lunch bag contains a banana, a slice of pineapple, a bowl of yoghurt, two slices of white bread without crust and with butter, two boiled eggs, a brownie and a bottle of water. Seems fine, but not very convenient or special.

During the tour, we had little time to peel an egg and the fruit starts to sweat because of the heat. In fact, we barely touch this breakfast. Our tip for The Coconut Gardens Hotel:: inform what your guests prefer. We were back at 11:00 and would have liked breakfast on our return.

Local breakfast

The local breakfast tastes good, although we do miss a nice curry or dhal and unfortunately get western white bread.

Remote working in Tissa

Remote working at The Coconut Gardens Hotel & Restaurant is possible, but not ideal. Although we slept here over the weekend, we naturally tested the remote working option for a while.

There is plenty of seating and you have stable wifi everywhere. The connection is about 3 Mbps with fluctuations between 1 Mbps and 5 Mbps. The downside is that the rooms where you can sit are open and thus get quite hot during the day. There are also mosquitoes from time to time.