Erandi Holiday Home

It’s the cheapest private room around, so set your expectations accordingly. What I liked most was how quiet and laid-back the place was. I didn’t see any mosquitoes while I was there. I kind of loved it, ¯\_(tsu)_/¯

The garden has lots of birds and animals, the linens were clean, and the place is close to the airport. It’s cheap, too. There was no hot water, and the Wi-Fi kept dropping out. The owner said someone had used up the whole data pack watching online video, so he recharged it, but the connection was gone again a few hours later. There’s no mosquito net, and part of the window stays open, so we got bitten by lots of insects. The fan was noisy and didn’t cool the room enough. There was just one charging point, and you need an adapter. No drinking water was provided, only bottled water at MRP. The host charged us a bit for tea))

The one plus was the airport drop-off for 500lkr. We paid 1500 LKR for five hours, which didn’t feel so cheap. The guy said, “it's not expensive so what do you expect?” when we tried to explain the state of the room. We arrived at night to sleep a few hours before our flight to France, but the room was filthy, the sheets clearly hadn’t been changed, there were mouse droppings in the bathroom, and there was NO hot water. Never again.

The argument over checkout was the last straw. I’d asked to leave at 7 p.m., but the owner came at 12 p.m. When we calmly talked for 15 minutes and I showed him both my special request and confirmation, he said he’d never confirmed it. Maybe he couldn’t read English and didn’t know what he was doing. We ended up arguing and cursing at each other, and I left. Angry, I walked to the airport, showered in the bathroom, and waited there 10 hours before my flight. Honestly, he did me a favor since the airport was clean and air-conditioned. You’d be better off sleeping in a park. Forget Erandi Holiday Home, it’s a total pigsty. Don’t say I didn’t warn you. Before that, I’d had awful problems with mosquitoes for both nights, getting bitten and swatting them away. The dirty, smelly net didn’t fit right, and there were holes in the wall. The sheets in the photos weren’t what they gave me. Mine were gritty, mismatched old rags that left dirt on me. There were blood stains on the walls from earlier mosquito victims, and I left one of my own. Nothing seemed clean, including the slack-jawed owners. They were friendly enough, but seemed uninterested in running the place properly. My room was never cleaned, food was never offered, and there was old, nasty soap in the bathroom, which had holes in the walls too. I didn’t get a key until my second night. I would have walked out right away if I’d been in my own country or had cellphone service. This was the worst place I’ve stayed, even compared with some pretty bad hostels.