A Top Business Watering Hole

Eric Ellis, Colombo

03/11/1988 

THE MOST splendid reminder of those different times must surely be the Galle Face Hotel in Colombo.

According to Newsweek, the GFH, as the hotel is known, is one of the world's top 10 watering holes. And as one downs a gin and tonic on its verandah while the winter monsoon collides on the horizon with a brilliant Indian Ocean sunset, who could disagree?

The GFH has been around for 124 years. During much of that time it was the focal point of British colonial life on the island. These days, it probably plays host to as many journalists as world travellers as the ethnic problems in the north attract increasing attention.

Cyril Gardiner, general manager of the hotel since 1965, claims it is the oldest and most splendid of Asia's grand hotels, including the Peninsular in Hong Kong, the Oriental in Bangkok and Singapore's Raffles. He points out with well-rehearsed pride that the GFH was opened "long before the world had heard of Marx, before the Wright brothers flew the first plane, before Bell invented the telephone, even before Stanley found Livingstone". Looking after the hotel, he says, has never been a job, but a passion. Employees are equally committed. "Most of my staff have been with us for more than 25 years. We have one chap who is approaching his 45th year with us. We have never had one retrenchment," the hotelier says with pride.

Alec Johnston, Sri Lankan chief for ANZ Grindlays, says: "Some places like Raffles put in the old-fashioned bit for the tourists. The fact is that nothing has changed at the Galle Face in 120 years."

The GFH has nothing of the impersonal sameness of the Hilton, Hyatts and Sheratons. At the GFH, roomboys become "butlers", the "servants" do not just leave the room, they retire or withdraw, staff appear from nowhere in bare feet and pristine white sarongs, and birds fly through the lobby and halls to frolic in birdbaths sprinkled with frangipani. The guests are a diversity of interesting folk, from old timers with walrus moustaches contemplating the rest of their journey over afternoon tea to the obligatory matrons of sensible shoes and cotton frocks preparing for a picnic in Kandy. And do not be surprised to meet a Sri Lankan Cabinet minister enjoying sundowners on the verandah.

The visitors' book at the hotel is living history. Nehru, Coward, Mountbatten, Nixon, Hirohito, Macmillan and Rockefeller are among those to have penned their names, sometimes with lyrical notes about their stay. The huge Galle Face Green which fronts the hotel, once a polo ground and racetrack, today serves as a common for the "womenfolk and children of Colombo", as a tablet says.

The rooms are vast, full of the grandeur of Empire. Massive red carpets worn down by 124 years of footprints, statues, potted palms and portraits of Churchill lend an air of a dilapidated Lincolnshire colonial pile.

To fully appreciate the charm and idiosyncracies of the hotel, first contact should be with a forward letter to Cyril Gardiner to secure a reservation. He will reply in the most gracious language on company letterhead that probably has not changed in 124 years.

Paradoxically, it is Sri Lanka's complex ethnic problem which makes the country and the hotel such a delightful and inexpensive place for a break, particularly for Australians. Few countries are as near to paradise as Sri Lanka, but the point is lost on the package tourists. They fail to recognise that most the trouble is confined to the north of the island. Room rates start at $US25-30 ($US35-42) a night. Suites are $US50-60 a night and hotel's glory, the duplex King Emperor Suite, one of the largest suites of any hotel in the world, can be had for a mere $US150-200.