A journey, not a stay: why we host one booking at a time

When we first imagined The Cliff Lodge, it wasn’t supposed to be like this.

Back then, the project had a different name: Project Seahorse. And, if we’re honest, the way we were thinking about it was much more conventional at that time. We understood the hospitality business, particularly upper-middle and high-end places. There were standards of operations, services, categories, things guests expected and all the usual boxes to tick.
That was our starting point.
Then we travelled around Sri Lanka for a few months. And somewhere along the way, we started to realize that we didn’t really want any of those boxes anymore.

We wanted freedom.

Space.

Privacy.

Living on the mountain

When we first came to the Cliff, we stayed for five nights. Then, in January 2018, we moved up here and started living here. Living on the mountain changed the way we looked at the whole idea. The place was already giving us exactly what we had been looking for. We just hadn’t known how to describe it before. It became increasingly clear that turning the Cliff into a conventional glamping site would mean losing some of the very things that had brought us here in the first place.

So we started again.

Smaller.

Slower.

There were ten compartments in the old line-house ruins. We used four of them for the tents, which eventually became what we now call the Connectors — our glass sleeping pods.
And at that time, there were only three of us doing everything: Naveen, Wasantha and me.
We had to be realistic.
We had to be able to welcome people, cook, clean, prepare everything, look after the place and still have enough time and energy to live our own lives up here.
So we decided on a maximum of eight guests at a time.
Today, we usually recommend the experience for up to six. There is simply more space that way — in the Jeep, around the dining areas and in all those little places where people settle down during the day. But when a group of eight really wants to come, we can still make it work.

One booking. One group.

And somewhere in all of that, the idea of one booking at a time emerged.
At first, it was partly necessity. We simply couldn’t — and didn’t want to — do more.

But something happened with the first few bookings.
We realised it worked. Not just for us. For everyone.

There was no second group arriving while another group was chilling on the deck. No guests wondering who else was staying here. No need to organize the mountain around several different sets of expectations. The people who arrived became, for those few days, the only guests here.

And we could be present with them.

Over the years, we did think about different options. There were times when we had to. After the Easter Sunday attacks in 2019, international tourism dropped dramatically, and then came the long Covid years. We had to adapt. From the beginning, though, we had opened The Cliff Lodge to both international and local guests. That decision helped us enormously during those difficult periods.

But even when everything around us was changing, we kept coming back to the same thing.
One booking. One group.
And the more we experienced it, the more we understood that what had started as a practical decision had quietly become part of the reason The Cliff Lodge exists in the first place.

Because what does one booking at a time actually mean?

Arriving at The Cliff Lodge

Perhaps the easiest way to explain it is to describe an arrival. Tharuka takes the guests through the forest. They walk under the canopy of trees until suddenly the forest opens. A path through tall grass appears, and then the view is there, it simply opens up in front of them.
And the whole crew is waiting to welcome them.
There is a glass of water for everyone. A piece of orange. A few moments on the deck to simply look. Then, usually, German pancakes with bananas and jaggery sauce appear, together with a cup of green tea. This tea is a secret recipe of Gnana uncle and comes with a slice of lime, a piece of cinnamon and some jaggery to bite into for sweetness.

And somewhere between the first pancake and the second sip of tea, the conversation usually begins.
How long have you been here?
How did you find this place?
Do you really live up here all year round?
What is the weather like in the rainy season?
Don’t you miss anything from down there?
There is no fifteen-minute welcome ceremony. If the conversation continues, it continues.
When the time feels right, we take the guests up to the Cliff and show them the viewing point — the place we love most for sunrise and sunset — and explain what they can do on the following day: either going on an adventurous River hike or chilling around the lodge because doing nothing is a thing up here.

Then, coming back down, we show them around.
The fireplace.
The fountain dining room.
The outside dining table.
The washrooms that open towards the view.
The Connectors.
The back area where the crew have their own tent and private space.
The main lodge.
And finally, the kitchen.
The guys will always tell guests that they can come in whenever they want. They can have a chat. Watch what is happening. Ask questions. See how things are prepared. And in the evening, they might find the guys plating dinner in the darkness, with only their head torches guiding the way.

It is not something we have created as an experience.
It is simply what happens here.

Time doesn’t really exist up here

And there is another thing that was always important to us.
Time doesn’t really exist in the same way up here.
That was something Naveen and I dreamed about when we were travelling.
If you are hungry, you eat. If you want another cup of tea, you have another cup of tea.
Or coffee.
Whenever you want.
Wherever you want.
On the deck. In the shala. At the dining table. Somewhere looking out over the valley.
Depending on the weather, we set up different places to get cozy into for a while — mattresses, pillows and blankets on the deck or in the shala.
You can have a refreshing shower when you are ready.
You can sit on top of the Cliff for an hour without doing anything at all.
You can start talking to one of the guys and realize, much later, that the conversation has somehow gone on for two hours.

None of these things are scheduled.
And that is precisely the point. Because when there are several groups staying at the same time, you inevitably start organizing around one another.
Someone is having breakfast.
Someone else is waiting for dinner.
One group wants to sit quietly.
Another wants to gather around the fire and sing songs.
Someone wants to do yoga in the shala.
Someone wants to stay at the Cliff until sunset.
Even with the best intentions, the freedom begins to have edges.

Room for everyone

With one booking, it is different.

The guests don’t have to organize their time around other guests. And the crew don’t have to divide themselves between different groups. They can spend time talking with the guests and then disappear into the kitchen to focus on preparing dinner. And they appear again when they are ready. They can be hosts without constantly having to perform being hosts.

And perhaps that is what we like most about the way we do things.
It gives everybody a little more room.
Room for the guests.
Room for the crew.
And room for us.

What began as something we did because there were only three of us very quickly became something we realized we didn’t want to give up.
Not because it makes The Cliff Lodge more exclusive. Actually, exclusivity was never the point.
We simply discovered that this way of hosting allows something else to happen.

There is time.

For a conversation.

For a quiet breakfast.

For another cup of tea.

For a walk through the forest.

For a shower whenever you feel like it.

For watching the last light disappear from the mountain.

For doing absolutely nothing.

And that, perhaps, is why we no longer think of The Cliff Lodge as somewhere you simply come to stay. It is a place where, for a little while, you don’t have to organize your life around a clock — or around anyone else.

You just have to be here.