Who’s in the Zoo?

Geoffrey Bawa was a genius. But even geniuses make mistakes…and Geoffrey overlooked the monkeys.

Geoffrey Bawa
photo: Mary Stirling

He was Sri Lanka’s most famous architect, and Kandalama is probably his most famous hotel. It’s a beauty — wrapped around a rocky cliff on the lake’s edge, its facade covered with cascading vines and creepers so that at times the building is almost hidden from view.

Open corridors and stairwells run along the rock face, hidden behind the hotel; on the outer side are the guest rooms, overlooking the lake. They all have huge windows, with glass sliding doors opening onto balconies, and stunning views.

But there’s a major flaw — you’re warned about it as soon as you arrive, and frequently thereafter — and that’s the monkeys. They think the hotel is heaven’s own jungle gym, and they think it belongs to them.

The monkeys lead a very protected life (this is, after all, an eco lodge) and consequently have no fear of people. Also, they quite like our stuff. Our cameras, our mobile phones. Backpacks, wallets. You know. Stuff. Just about anything. If you venture outside, particularly onto the roof garden, they may leap onto you from behind just to see if they can shake something loose.

So you’re constantly told:

(a) don’t leave anything lying around
(b) don’t go onto your balcony
(c) don’t leave the balcony doors open.

One of Bawa’s main principles was incorporating traditional Sri Lankan practices into modern design. For instance, using natural shade and air circulation, rather than air conditioning, to keep buildings cool.

At Kandalama, however, there’s an open-air terrace café/bar, but most other public spaces are enclosed. The restaurant is an enormous room, mostly glass, with gorgeous views — and entirely sealed off from the outside world. (Which makes perfect sense. Can you imagine? Monkeys. Food, monkeys. Dishes, cutlery, monkeys. It would be the Marx Brothers on speed.)

But for some people, this sort of defeats the purpose of staying in a beautiful tropical country in a beautiful hotel with beautiful views. Stay inside with the doors closed at all times…really? Today, the Heritance Kandalama is a hermetically-sealed, air-conditioned glass fortress that bears little resemblance to Bawa’s ideal.

(I should mention that there’s a perfectly lovely old resort across the lake with an open-air dining room, open-air bar, open-air spa, open-air lounge and reception area, and no monkeys at all. There’s no obvious explanation, and we avoid thinking about the possibility that the resort developers simply shot the lot of them at some point before, during or after its construction. On the other hand the Constant Companion, who doesn’t have a cynical bone in his body, insists it’s simply because Kandalama was built in a jungle; the other resort is surrounded by farmland.)

It was probably inevitable that sooner or later one of us would test the boundaries. And so it came to pass that one beautiful morning, with not a monkey in sight, I ventured onto the balcony to read and have a cup of tea.

Within about three minutes a monkey appeared and perched on the railing some distance away. I waited. Within seconds another one popped up. In less than a minute there was a mob of them: big monkeys, small monkeys, cute little baby monkeys, and one very, very big monkey.

Score: monkeys, 11 – homo sapiens, 1. It was time to retreat. Clutching my book and glasses, and leaving the tea behind, I dragged the door closed after me.

Safely inside, I  settled down to watch. The boss monkey investigated the tea: tipped over the teacup, rolled it round the table, dipped a finger in the dregs to see if he liked it. (He didn’t.)

Now the only vaguely interesting thing left in the vicinity was me, sheltering behind the plate glass.

Boss monkey came closer to the window and looked in at me. I looked back…hoping, I suppose, for a glimmer of recognition, some sort of all-us-primates-together camaraderie. But there was nothing.

Still, for some reason, I placed my hand flat against the glass.

And then he placed his hand on the other side. Palm to palm, we sat there looking into each other’s eyes….and still, nothing. His were as bright, and as expressionless, as two black buttons.

Right, I thought. You and your family are out there in the fresh air and sunshine, looking at me in here locked in my glass box. Who, exactly, is in the zoo?