Jetwing Vil Uyana

Work on the wetland began in 2004, when Jetwing took on 28 acres of exhausted paddy land a few kilometres from Sigiriya and asked environmental architect Sunela Jayewardene to do something unusual with it. She dug lakes and channels, replanted marsh and forest, and only then set 36 thatched dwellings among them on stilts. The reserve opened in 2006 and has since recorded more than 140 bird species, fishing cats, jungle cats and a resident population of grey slender loris. The hotel keeps a conservation area for the loris and leads guests out after dark to look for them by red torchlight.

The dwellings follow the habitat they stand in. Water Dwellings sit over the central lake with decks at the height of the herons; Paddy Dwellings look across rice that is still planted and harvested with the village; the ten Forest Dwellings are built of earth and stone on two floors with a private pool and a walled courtyard. Rooms are cooled by their position over water and by thick clay plaster rather than by machines alone, and the buggies that carry guests along the paths are electric.

The lakes are filled entirely by harvested rainwater, wastewater is reused on the grounds, and a biogas plant turns the kitchen's food waste into gas. At dinner, ask for the Sri Lankan menu rather than the Western one. In 2023 Condé Nast Traveller included the property among its fifteen best eco hotels in the world.