Unawatuna Beach

Unawatuna produces a very particular kind of small disappointment. Not a large one: most people who come here swim, eat well and go away content. But somewhere in the first hour there is usually a pause, while a visitor looks at the bay, then at the photograph that brought them to it, and works out privately that the two are not quite the same place.

The photographs were not faked. The bay really was that wide. What is missing is roughly forty years of history, in which a small fishing and coconut village with a beautiful sheltered crescent became one of the best-known beaches in South Asia, was built along almost to the water, lost a great deal of its sand, was flattened and rebuilt after the tsunami, acquired a breakwater that people still argue about, and ended up narrower, busier and harder-edged than the version of it that is still circulating online.

That is the argument this page is built on, and it is offered as useful rather than discouraging. Unawatuna is a good beach. The water is genuinely calm when the season is right, the swimming is the easiest on this stretch of coast, there is still a reef out there, the food is good and Galle is ten minutes away. It simply is not a discovery, and the people who enjoy it most are the ones who turned up knowing exactly that.

What actually happened to this bay

The sequence matters, because almost every complaint made about the place is a downstream effect of it. It began as a village bay: fishing boats pulled up on the sand, coconut palms behind, a temple on the rocks, and a shape so sheltered that children could swim in it. Independent travellers found it decades ago, when the south coast had very little else with calm water and a road to it. Guesthouses appeared, then restaurants, then more of both. Because the bay is small and the demand was not, building crept seaward. A restaurant with tables on the sand does better than one set back behind the palms, so the buildings moved forward, and each one that moved forward made the argument for the next.

Then the sand began to go. The drivers compound: structures sitting on the active beach interrupt the way sand moves along and up and down a shore, hard walls reflect wave energy downward instead of absorbing it, and clearing the vegetated dune and palm line removes the reservoir a beach draws on to rebuild itself after a rough season. Add a reef no longer breaking waves as effectively as it once did, and the buffer is gone at both ends of the system.

The tsunami in December 2004 hit this coast very hard, Unawatuna included. What followed was a rapid rebuild, and rebuilding is when the shape of a place gets decided for the next generation. Much of it went back in the same footprint or closer to the water. Enforcement of the coastal reserve, the strip of shore that is supposed to stay clear of permanent building, came later and was contested; structures were ordered down, some came down, and the process was neither quick nor uniform.

Then the breakwater. A rock structure was built at the western end of the bay with the stated aim of protecting the shore and holding sand in place. It has been disputed ever since, on the grounds that it altered how sand moves inside the bay rather than simply retaining it, taking from one part of the crescent what it gave to another, and that it changed the water movement and the way waves reach the beach. Different people will tell you it saved the bay and that it ruined it. What is not in dispute is that the beach a visitor walks onto today is a different beach from the one in the older pictures.

The geography, and why this bay is calm when the coast is not

Stand at either end of the bay and the reason for Unawatuna's whole existence as a resort is visible in about ten seconds.

The coast here runs roughly east and west and is mostly straight, open and exposed, so swell arriving from the south-west hits it close to head-on. That is why the beaches either side are surf beaches or simply rough. At Unawatuna the land does something different: a wooded headland, Rumassala, pushes out at the western end and stands between the beach and the direction the weather comes from, and the shore curves back east in a crescent, tucking the sand in behind the hill rather than facing the ocean squarely.

Across part of the mouth of that crescent lies a reef. Reefs work as breakwaters that were not designed by anybody: swell trips over the shallow coral and loses most of its energy out there instead of on the sand. What reaches the beach inside is a fraction of what arrives outside. The combination of a headland on the weather side and a reef across the entrance is what makes Unawatuna swimmable when a beach fifteen minutes away is not, and it is the whole reason a village here became a resort while equally pretty bays nearby stayed villages.

Two consequences run through the rest of this page. The shelter is not uniform: it is strongest in the middle of the crescent, behind the reef and under the hill, and thinnest at the eastern end where the bay opens out. And a sheltered bay is a sand trap, which makes it sensitive. Change what sits on the shore, what is happening on the reef or what is built across the mouth, and the beach responds.

What the beach is like now

An honest description. The bay is a curve of pale sand, a comfortable fifteen or twenty minutes' walk end to end, backed almost continuously by restaurants, guesthouses, hotels and dive shops, most of them close enough that their terraces are effectively on the beach. There are palms, but they stand among the buildings rather than in a green line behind them. At the western end the ground rises into the wooded slope of Rumassala; at the eastern end the building thins.

The width varies enormously, and it is the single thing most worth knowing before arrival. In places, particularly towards the western end and in front of the more forward-built properties, high tide reduces the dry beach to a few paces, and in the worst spots the water reaches the retaining walls and there is no dry beach at all. Elsewhere in the same bay on the same afternoon there is a broad and perfectly pleasant expanse. Sand moves seasonally too, so a section can be generous in one month and mean in another.

The practical response is one most visitors never think of: walk before you settle. Ten minutes going the length of the bay to choose a section beats any advice a page can give, because the good positions shift with the tide, the month and the year. Dropping a towel at the first gap and concluding the whole beach is a strip of sand behind a wall is the commonest way to be unfairly disappointed here.

Time of day matters as much as tide. Early morning is excellent: flat light, fishing activity, the beach being raked and set up, almost nobody in the water. Sunset is when the bay is at its most crowded and its most attractive at once. Midday is hot, hard-lit and the least rewarding part of it.

Swimming, and the parts of the bay to stay out of

Swimming is the main reason to be here and, in season, it lives up to its reputation. The water inside the bay is usually calm enough for weak swimmers and children, shallow a long way out over sand, warm, and largely free of the dumping shore break that makes much of this coast tiring rather than relaxing. Families with small children get the most out of Unawatuna, and that is the headland and the reef doing their work rather than any accident of marketing.

The qualifications are real, though, and they are geographic rather than seasonal.

• The ends of the bay are not the middle of the bay. Water pushed over a reef and into a confined bay has to leave again, and it leaves through the gaps and around the edges. That produces currents running seaward at the ends of the crescent and near breaks in the reef. They are strongest when the swell is up, and they are exactly where an inexperienced swimmer, having found the middle easy, drifts to.
• Rocks and coral rubble. The bottom is not sand everywhere. There is rock at the western end under the hill, and patches of dead coral and rubble elsewhere, some of it sharp. Anyone snorkelling or wading beyond the clear sand should have something on their feet.
• There is no comprehensive lifeguard service. Assume nobody is watching the water. Swim in front of people rather than at an empty end of the bay, and not alone at dusk. Snorkelling trips, dive boats and fishing craft also use the bay, so keep clear of the channels they run through.
• Out of season the picture changes completely. When the swell is running the bay can be brown, choppy and genuinely unsafe, and the calm-water description above simply does not apply.

If a current does take you, the standard advice is the correct advice: do not try to swim straight back against it, swim parallel to the shore until you are out of the flow, and then come in. Panic and a straight-line fight are what turn a nuisance into an emergency.

The seasons, and which monsoon governs this coast

Sri Lanka has two monsoons hitting two different sides of the island, and Unawatuna sits on the side that is wrong for roughly half the year. Ignoring that is the largest planning mistake made about this beach.

The south-west monsoon runs broadly from around May into September and delivers its rain and, more importantly, its swell to this coast. The settled period is broadly from around December through to March, with the shoulders either side of it variable. That settled window is when the bay is at its calmest, the water at its clearest, the snorkelling worth doing and the sand at its most generous, and it is also when the beach is fullest and the bars are loudest.

The distinction worth grasping is that the obstacle out of season is the sea, not the weather. Rain here tends to arrive as heavy bursts with bright hours between them rather than a grey day that never lifts. What is lost is the water: bigger swell, murky visibility, weed and debris on the sand, snorkelling trips not running, sections of beach cut back, and some beachfront businesses scaling down or closing.

So for anyone travelling between about May and September the honest advice is to point the itinerary at the east coast or into the hills, and to treat this bay as a lunch stop attached to Galle rather than a base. The island is arranged so that some coast always works; using the calendar rather than the map is the most effective thing a visitor can do with a Sri Lankan itinerary.

April, and the weeks from late October into November, are the gambles. They can hand you flawless water with a fraction of the crowd, or a fortnight of swell. Nobody can tell you which in advance, and anyone who claims to is guessing.

The reef and the snorkelling, honestly

There is a reef here and it is real. It is not, for the most part, the postcard reef that the word makes people imagine.

What is out there is a mixture: dead coral and rubble, rock, some surviving hard coral, and a moderate quantity of reef fish going about their business among all of it. The damage has come from several directions over decades. Warm-water bleaching events have hit corals across the Indian Ocean, and shallow reefs like this one are the most exposed to them. The tsunami did physical damage. Sediment and run-off from a developed shoreline smother coral and stop it recovering. Anchors, fins, hands and the volume of people standing on it did the rest. Coral recovers from any one of those; the combination is much harder.

So the sensible expectation is this. You will see fish, often plenty of them, in warm shallow water requiring no boat and no skill, along with structure and some living coral. You will not see a dense, colourful, healthy reef system. Visibility is best in the settled months and worst after rain or when swell is stirring the bottom, and it varies from day to day.

Etiquette carries more weight here than on a healthy reef, precisely because this one is under pressure. Do not stand on it, hold it or touch it, and control your fins, since a careless kick breaks in a second what took years to grow. Covering up with a rash vest is also a better answer than a heavy layer of lotion washing off into shallow, poorly flushed water.

For serious underwater interest this coast has wrecks and better sites offshore, and dive operations work out of the bay in season. For a snorkeller, treat the reef as a pleasant twenty minutes rather than the reason for the trip.

Rumassala, and the walk up to the Peace Pagoda

The wooded hill at the western end of the bay is the best thing to do here that does not involve getting wet, and it takes a couple of hours at most.

Rumassala is the headland that shelters the beach, and it carries a distinctive local reputation. The plants on it are held to be unusual, and the traditional explanation is that the hill is a fragment of a Himalayan peak dropped here by Hanuman while carrying medicinal herbs south during the events of the Ramayana. It is the reason the hill has been treated as special for a very long time.

Near the top stands a white Japanese Peace Pagoda, a domed stupa built by a Japanese Buddhist order that has put up similar pagodas in several countries as monuments to non-violence. It is not an ancient monument and does not pretend to be: a clean white dome with gilded reliefs set around it, a terrace, and one of the most complete views on this part of the coast. The bay lies directly below, seen as a curve rather than a strip, and on a clear day the ramparts of Galle stand across the water to the west.

Doing the walk

There is a road up, so the pagoda can be reached by vehicle or tuk-tuk, and the walk from the beach is a climb on a made surface rather than a hike. It is not long and it is not technical, but it is steep in sections and it is on the open side of the hill for part of the way.

• Go early or late. In the middle of the day this is a hot climb with limited shade, and the midday view is flat and washed out anyway. Late afternoon gives the best light on the bay and on Galle.
• It is a religious site. Cover shoulders and knees, remove shoes where you are asked to, keep your voice down, and do not treat the terrace as a photo studio if anyone is there to sit quietly.
• Take water. There is little on the way up and you will want more than you think.

A common and sensible arrangement is to walk up in the late afternoon, continue down the far side to Jungle Beach, and come back round to Unawatuna by tuk-tuk rather than reclimbing the hill in the dark.

Jungle Beach, and what it is now

On the far side of the Rumassala headland, facing away from Unawatuna, sits a small cove usually called Jungle Beach. It is the standard answer to the question of where to go when the main bay feels too built up, and it is a good answer with one caveat.

It is reached by a path down through the trees from the hill road, or by tuk-tuk to the top of the path, and the descent is short but rough underfoot in places. The cove itself is small, backed by trees rather than buildings, with calm shallow water and reef close in, and it is a considerably prettier piece of coast than the main bay.

The caveat is that it stopped being a secret years ago. There is food and drink, there are sunbeds, and in high season a small cove with limited sand fills quickly, so a busy afternoon can feel proportionally more crowded than the main bay. Early morning is transformative here in a way it is not everywhere.

There is more than one small cove on that side of the headland, and walking past the first one is often worth the effort. The same rule applies as in the main bay: the shelter is real in the middle and thinner at the edges, and nobody is watching the water.

Dalawella and the coast to the east

Head east from Unawatuna and the coast breaks up into a series of small beaches lying behind sections of reef. Dalawella is the best known of them and is a few minutes away by road. For a good many visitors it is the more attractive beach of the two, and anyone who finds the main bay too dense should spend a morning there before writing off the area.

The appeal is the reef line sitting a short distance offshore. It creates shallow, clear, protected pools at lower water that are excellent for floating about in, and the beach behind them is less built up than Unawatuna, with more palm and less concrete directly on the sand. It is quieter, though quieter is a relative term on this coast and it is not empty.

Two warnings. The reef that makes the pools is hard, sharp and shallow, so footwear matters. And the same mechanism produces outflows through the reef gaps, which behave exactly like the currents at the ends of Unawatuna bay: stay inside the protected water. The coast beyond is progressively more of a surf shore and less of a swimming one, so wandering further east in search of calmer water works against the trend.

The rope swing

At Dalawella there is a palm leaning out over the water with a rope swing on it, and it is one of the most photographed objects in the country. Almost every Sri Lanka gallery online contains a version of the same picture.

Two things about it. It is not a wild swinging palm somebody stumbled upon; it is a small business. Someone owns the ground, maintains the rope and the platform and charges to use it, and there is very often a queue for the same photograph. That is a fair arrangement, but go knowing what it is.

The other is that the water underneath is not uniformly deep and there is reef and rock about. Follow the instructions of whoever is running it and do not improvise. If the photograph is the point, go early: the queue and the light are both better before mid-morning.

The turtles, and the problem with the seaweed

Green turtles come into the shallows along the Dalawella and Habaraduwa stretch to feed, and swimming near a wild sea turtle is genuinely memorable. It is also the part of a visit to this coast that most deserves a straight explanation, because much of what happens around it is bad for the animals.

Turtles graze on seaweed and sea grass close to shore. What has grown up around that is a small economy in which seaweed is sold to visitors so they can hold it out and draw a turtle within touching distance for a photograph. It works, reliably, and that is precisely the problem.

• It changes where the animals spend their time. Turtles that associate people with food congregate in shallow water full of swimmers, boats and propellers, which is one of the more effective ways for a sea turtle to be injured or killed.
• It changes their diet and their behaviour. A wild grazing animal being hand-fed by strangers all day is not doing what it evolved to do, and the food is not necessarily what it would otherwise eat.
• It leads directly to handling. Once a turtle is at arm's length, somebody will touch it, sit on it or grab the shell for a photograph. That damages the protective layer on the shell, and it stresses an animal that has to surface to breathe.
• It concentrates the crowd. A ring of people closing around a surfacing turtle blocks its route to air, which is the least visible and most serious thing that goes wrong in these encounters.

The alternative is straightforward and better. Do not buy the seaweed. Do not feed, touch, chase, ride or block a turtle. Keep a real distance, stay still and let it come or not come, give it a clear line to the surface, and take the photograph from where you are. Sea turtles are protected species and the encounter is worth more when the animal is behaving normally. Anyone who wants a guaranteed close look at turtles is better served by a properly run conservation project than by a bag of seaweed on a beach.

Eating, and the beachfront restaurant economy

Eating is one of Unawatuna's genuine strengths and it is worth understanding how the front works before deciding where to sit.

The bay is lined with restaurants, most of them open-sided, many with tables on the sand and lights strung above them. In the evening the whole crescent becomes a single strip of tables, and the standard performance is the seafood display: a bed of ice at the front of the restaurant carrying the day's fish, prawns, crab, cuttlefish and lobster, from which you pick a piece to be grilled. It looks wonderful and it can be excellent. It is also where most visitors overpay and occasionally get something less fresh than it looked, because the display is doing a selling job as well as an informative one.

A few things that consistently help.

• Fix what you are buying before it is cooked. Seafood is usually sold by weight, so agree the piece, see it weighed, and agree the method of cooking. The disputes that arise here almost all come from a vague order and a precise bill.
• The best value is rarely on the display. Rice and curry, a plate of hoppers or a fish curry cooked to a house recipe is generally better food than a grilled lobster on a beach, and considerably more interesting.
• Walk one street back. The places set behind the beachfront row, used by people who live and work here, are consistently better value and often better cooking. The view is the thing you are paying for on the sand, and it is a fair trade only when you have decided to make it.
• Judge by turnover, not by the sign, and treat breakfast as the underrated meal here: empty terraces, and the hour at which the bay most resembles the photographs.

The wider point is that nearly the whole beachfront is private commercial frontage. Sunbeds and shade belong to businesses and come with the expectation that you will eat or drink there. That is the model rather than a scam, but it means lying on this beach without spending is harder than it looks, and the free sand is the narrow public strip nearest the water, which is also the strip that goes at high tide.

Touts, sellers and the hard sell

Unawatuna is a commercial beach with a lot of small operators on it competing for a limited number of visitors, and the approach rate reflects that. It is not aggressive by regional standards, but it is persistent, and people who came expecting an empty bay find it wearing.

What comes past a towel in an afternoon: fruit and sarong sellers, jewellery, boat and snorkelling trips, whale and turtle excursions, massages, tattoos, restaurant touts working the sand for the evening, and tuk-tuk drivers offering a day to Galle and back. Each is reasonable on its own; the volume is the issue.

• A clear, friendly, immediate no works better than politeness. An apologetic conversation reads as interest, and interest is what an experienced seller is listening for.
• Do not accept the free thing. A fruit handed over unprompted or a bracelet tied on your wrist creates an obligation, and that is the mechanism.
• Settle the terms of any trip before boarding. Boat excursions sold on the sand vary enormously in quality, in how long they last and in whether there are enough life jackets. Ask.
• Commission is a normal part of the system. A driver or guide pressing a particular restaurant, shop or excursion is very often paid for the introduction, and that sits inside what you are quoted. Saying no is acceptable.
• Be sceptical of anything sold as a rescue or a sanctuary where handling wild animals is the attraction.

Petty theft is the other practical point. Bags left on the sand while everybody swims do occasionally walk. Take what you need and leave the rest where you are staying.

Noise, and what the bay does after dark

In season, parts of the Unawatuna front are lively at night. Beach bars run music late, some of it loud, and on weekends and around full moon there are larger parties. This is a legitimate part of the appeal for a good number of visitors, and it is the single most common complaint from the rest.

The geography works against a quiet night. The bay is a curve with a hill at one end, which means sound carries across the water and reflects, so a bar at one end of the crescent is audible at the other. Rooms in the beachfront row have very little between them and the speakers. Rooms set back behind the front, or up the slope, are meaningfully quieter, and the difference between a good night's sleep and a bad one here is often thirty or forty metres of distance.

So be specific when booking. Ask whether the property is on the beachfront strip, what sits either side of it, and how late the neighbours run music. Anyone with young children, or wanting an early start for the hill or for Galle, should choose the back streets or the eastern end rather than the middle. Out of season the question answers itself.

Galle Fort is ten minutes away, and that changes the maths

The walled Dutch town on the headland is about ten minutes from the bay by road, and its ramparts, streets, churches and museums are covered properly on their own page rather than here. What matters from Unawatuna is the relationship, because it is the strongest argument for choosing this beach over a prettier one further east.

Ten minutes means the Fort stops being an excursion and becomes somewhere you drop into repeatedly: the walls at six in the morning, an hour indoors during the afternoon heat, dinner inside the ramparts and back to the bay afterwards. Visitors based further east get one attempt at Galle and usually take it in the middle of the day, because that is what a day trip forces.

The reverse is also true and is the reason a lot of people end up here without having chosen it. Unawatuna is where most visitors to Galle actually sleep, because the Fort has no swimming of its own. If the walled town is the real reason for the trip and the beach is a bonus, this bay is the practical base and its shortcomings matter much less.

Unawatuna against Mirissa, Hikkaduwa and Tangalle

For anyone choosing a single base on the south coast, the comparison below is the one that actually decides it. All four are on the same coast, all four are governed by the same monsoon, and they are genuinely different places rather than variations on a theme.

Unawatuna

The calmest swimming of the four and the one closest to a major sight. Choose it for flat, shallow water, for small children, for a short stay, and for having Galle on the doorstep. Accept in exchange that it is the most developed, that the beach is narrow in places and can be very narrow at high tide, and that it is busy. It is the least like an escape and the most convenient.

Mirissa

A larger bay further east with more sand, a headland to climb and a stronger evening scene. Its distinguishing feature is that the continental shelf comes close inshore off the southern tip, putting blue whales within a morning boat trip in season, and that has shaped the town. Against it: further from Galle, less protected swimming, and busy in its own right.

Hikkaduwa

North of Galle rather than south, and the one with waves. Choose it for surfing at any level, for diving, for reef reached without a boat, and for a town with its own working life rather than a resort strip. Against it: the main coast road runs through it, and the swimming is a rougher proposition altogether.

Tangalle

Much further east, and the one people choose having decided the Galle end is too developed. Wide beaches, far fewer people, a spread-out kind of stay and easier reach of the national parks in the deep south. The trade is real: several beaches down there are exposed, with serious surf and undertow rather than swimming, there is much less to walk to in the evening, and a car stops being a convenience and becomes a necessity.

The short version

• Calm water, children, and Galle in ten minutes: Unawatuna.
• A bigger beach, whales in season and a night out: Mirissa.
• Surf, reef and a town rather than a resort: Hikkaduwa.
• Space, quiet and the deep south: Tangalle.

Splitting a week between two of them is normal, usually better than a fortnight in one, and the legs between them are short.

Who this beach suits, and who should book elsewhere

Worth being blunt about, because most of the disappointment attached to this bay is a mismatch rather than a fault. It suits families with young children, weak swimmers, anyone who wants to be able to walk to dinner rather than drive to it, people whose trip is really about Galle, short stays and stopovers, and anybody who likes a beach with life and noise and a lot going on around them.

It does not suit anyone whose mental image is an empty tropical bay, anyone wanting a wide beach to walk for an hour, serious surfers, snorkellers hoping for a healthy reef, light sleepers booking on the front in high season, or anyone travelling when this coast is under swell. All of them have a better option within an hour or two.

Practicalities, access and how long to allow

There is no ticket and no gate. Unawatuna is a public beach with private frontage along it, and you walk on.

A few hours is enough to swim, eat and see the bay. A full day makes sense with the hill and the pagoda included, or with the Fort in the late afternoon. As a base, three or four nights is the point at which most people have exhausted what is within walking distance.

Getting there

The bay sits about 130 km from Colombo, roughly two hours and ten minutes by road, because the Southern Expressway runs inland and fast rather than along the coast. The route pages cover the drive and the choice between the expressway and the slower, prettier old coast road. Galle is the nearest town:

• Colombo to Galle, 125 km, reckon on 120 minutes.
• Bandaranaike International Airport to Galle, 158 km, reckon on 135 minutes.
• Hikkaduwa to Galle, 22 km, reckon on 25 minutes.
• Bentota to Galle, 69 km, reckon on 50 minutes.
• Mirissa to Galle, 36 km, reckon on 60 minutes.
• Matara to Galle, 45 km, reckon on 60 minutes.

Add the short run round the headland from Galle at the end of any of those. Once the shape of the trip is settled, book a car directly; the rest of the island is covered across the other destination guides.

Arrival and drop-offs

The one arrival detail that changes the visit is that vehicles cannot reach most of the beachfront. The lanes behind the bay are narrow and several are not drivable to the door, so cars set down at the top of a lane and the last stretch is walked with your luggage. Say where you are staying when you book rather than at the junction.

Access, without pretending

• The approach lanes are narrow, uneven, often sandy and generally without pavements.
• Many beachfront properties are entered up steps from the sand or down steps from a lane, and few are adapted.
• Soft sand, and in places a drop from a retaining wall onto the beach, make wheeled access to the water hard to impossible along much of the crescent. The eastern end is generally flatter than the western.
• The pagoda has a road to the top, so the view is reachable without the climb.
• The calm water is one of the more manageable sea entries on this coast for anyone who can reach it, which is why reaching it is worth arranging in advance.

What to bring

• Something on your feet for the water, because of rock and coral rubble.
• A rash vest rather than repeated heavy lotion, for the reef and your shoulders.
• Small notes; not everything on the sand takes a card.
• Clothes covering shoulders and knees for the pagoda, and for the temples and mosque in Galle.
• Insect repellent for the evening under the trees.

A sensible shape for a day

1. Be in the water before eight. The bay early is calm, cool and uncrowded, and this is the hour that reconciles most people to it.
2. Breakfast on a terrace while the beach is still being set up.
3. Walk the length of the bay before choosing where to settle, and note where the sand is wide at the state of tide you have.
4. Snorkel mid-morning if the water is clear, with realistic expectations, and get out before the boats and the crowd build.
5. Take the hot middle of the day off the sand. Lunch back from the front, or spend it in Galle, which has thick walls and roofs.
6. Late afternoon, walk up Rumassala to the pagoda for the view down over the bay, and come back over the headland by way of Jungle Beach.
7. Give a separate morning to Dalawella if you have one, for the reef pools and a look at the turtles from a proper distance.
8. Choose the evening deliberately. Dinner on the sand with the lights and the noise, or a table one street back, or the ramparts at Galle and back afterwards. They are three different nights.

Unawatuna is not the beach it was, and no amount of careful phrasing will make it so. It is a small, sheltered, thoroughly developed bay that has taken a great deal of pressure, lost some of its sand and much of its reef, and kept the two things that made it worth coming to in the first place: water calm enough to float in and a position ten minutes from one of the finest walled towns in Asia. Judged against the photograph, it will let you down. Judged as what it actually is, it is one of the easiest and most enjoyable places to spend a few days on this coast.