The recovery fortnight
Twelve days built backwards from a hospital date
- Length
- 12 days, 11 nights
- Pace
- Barely moves
- Bases
- 2
- Best months
- Dec to Apr
- From
- $1,720 · $143/day
per person, twin share, excluding international flights.
IndicativeThese prices are modelled from market rates and have not been costed yet. We will quote a real figure when you enquire.
When this trip works
The hospital runs all year and the weather never touches it. The recovery half does: Bentota is on the southwest coast, which is dry and swimmable December to April and rough from May to September. October and November are the turn, and for a trip spent mostly resting they are a fair trade for the lowest rates of the year. If your procedure date falls in the monsoon proper we move the second half to the east coast rather than sell you a grey sea, and the shape of the trip does not otherwise change.
October — mixed, worth a conversation
It is October now, and this route reads mixed this month.
- Prime
- Good
- Mixed
- Out of season
The shape of it
Colombo and the westWest and south coast
2 bases, 1 change of hotel. The longest stay is 6 nights in Bentota.
Colombo
5 nights, days 1 to 5
Bentota
6 nights, days 6 to 11
Fly home
Two nights minimum everywhere except a stop that exists to break a long transfer.
Day by day
Breakfast, lunch and dinner, where they are included that day.
Stop 1 · Colombo and the west
Colombo
Days 1–5 · 5 nights
Bandaranaike Airport to Colombo · 45 min–1.5 hours(unconfirmed)
Day 1: Land, and go no further
Met at the aircraft door with fast-track, then forty minutes to a hotel a short drive from the hospital. Nothing is scheduled and nobody expects anything of you today.
- Airport fast-track and private transfer
- A room near the hospital, not near the sights
- Meals
- Dinner
- Pace
- Barely moves
Day 2: Consultation day
Your driver takes you to your appointment and waits, however long it runs. We hold the rest of the day empty, because these appointments overrun and a booked afternoon is a wasted one.
- Transfer to your appointment, with the car waiting
- The afternoon deliberately unbooked
- Meals
- Breakfast
- Pace
- Barely moves
- Transfer
- No intercity drive planned
Day 3: The day itself
You are at the hospital for whatever your consultant has scheduled. Anyone travelling with you is looked after: a driver on call, a quiet place to wait, and someone reachable on the phone all day.
- Transfers either side of admission
- A companion looked after while you are in
- Meals
- Breakfast
- Pace
- Barely moves
- Transfer
- No intercity drive planned
Day 4: The first day after
Discharge when your consultant says so and not before, which is why the room is held either way. If you stay in, the room stays booked and nothing needs rearranging.
- Room held on both sides of discharge
- Pharmacy run handled for you
- Meals
- Breakfast
- Pace
- Barely moves
- Transfer
- No intercity drive planned
Day 5: Still in reach
A second night within twenty minutes of the hospital, because the first follow-up sometimes moves and going back should be a short drive rather than a decision.
- Twenty minutes from the hospital
- Nothing scheduled
- Meals
- Breakfast
- Pace
- Barely moves
- Transfer
- No intercity drive planned
Stop 2 · West and south coast
Bentota
Days 6–12 · 6 nights
Colombo to Bentota · 1.3–1.8 hours(unconfirmed)
Day 6: Down to the coast
Two hours on the expressway to a quiet stretch of the southwest coast, in a car set up for someone who has just had a procedure. We stop when you say.
- Expressway rather than the coast road
- A ground-floor room, arranged in advance
- Meals
- Breakfast, Dinner
- Pace
- Barely moves
Day 7: Doing nothing, deliberately
The first of six days with nothing in them. Meals when you want them, shade, a river on one side and the sea on the other, and no obligation to look at anything.
- An empty day
- Meals on your own clock
- Meals
- Breakfast
- Pace
- Barely moves
- Transfer
- No intercity drive planned
Day 8: As much or as little as you want
Optional and gentle, if you are up to it: the turtle hatchery down the road, or an hour on the Madu Ganga in a boat that does not bounce. Both are twenty minutes away.
- Optional short outings, none of them compulsory
If you want moreMadu Ganga river boat · Sea turtle hatchery
- Meals
- Breakfast
- Pace
- Barely moves
- Transfer
- No intercity drive planned
Day 9: Follow-up, if you need one
If your consultant wants to see you again, today is the day the car goes back up to Colombo and returns. If not, it is another empty one and costs you nothing.
- A return run to Colombo held in reserve
- Meals
- Breakfast
- Pace
- Barely moves
- Transfer
- No intercity drive planned
Day 10: Galle, at your pace
An hour south to the fort, if you want a day out that is flat, walkable and entirely optional. Coffee, the ramparts, back before the heat.
- Galle Fort on foot, at a walking pace that suits you
If you want moreBrief Garden at Bevis Bawa · An afternoon back at the hotel instead
- Meals
- Breakfast
- Pace
- Gentle
- Transfer
- No intercity drive planned
Day 11: The last quiet day
Nothing scheduled, a fit-to-fly letter collected if your consultant is issuing one, and bags packed slowly rather than at six the next morning.
- Paperwork collected for you
- A slow last evening
- Meals
- Breakfast, Dinner
- Pace
- Barely moves
- Transfer
- No intercity drive planned
Bentota to Bandaranaike Airport · 2–2.5 hours(unconfirmed)
Day 12: Home
Two hours to the airport with a wide buffer, wheelchair assistance arranged in advance if it is wanted, and fast-track through departures.
- Departure transfer with a real buffer
- Assistance arranged, not asked for at the desk
- Meals
- Breakfast
- Pace
- Gentle
What it costs
One route, three levels of hotel. The itinerary does not change.
Comfort
$1,720
$143 a day · single supplement $520
A well-run city hotel a short drive from the private hospitals, then a three-star beach hotel at Bentota with ground-floor rooms and a lift.
- Private air-conditioned vehicle and driver on call throughout
- Eleven nights accommodation, held across your discharge date
- Daily breakfast
- All hospital transfers, with the car waiting rather than dropping
- 24-hour local support line in English
Boutique
$2,680
$223 a day · single supplement $850
A quiet five-star in Colombo within twenty minutes of the hospital district, then a small boutique property on the Bentota river with room service that runs late.
- Everything in Comfort
- Breakfast and one further meal daily
- A companion looked after on treatment days, with a driver on call for them
- Prescriptions collected and paperwork chased on your behalf
- A named coordinator on WhatsApp for the whole trip
Luxury
$4,150
$346 a day · single supplement $1,450
A suite in Colombo and a villa at Bentota with its own cook, so meals answer to your consultant's instructions rather than to a buffet.
- Everything in Boutique
- All meals, cooked to any dietary restriction you are given
- Airport fast-track and wheelchair assistance both ways
- A nurse arranged at the property for the first nights after discharge, where your consultant asks for one
- A second vehicle for anyone travelling with you
per person, twin share, excluding international flights.
Entrance fees, itemised
Site fees in Sri Lanka are high and rising: Sigiriya alone is thirty-five dollars. Most operators bury them in the exclusions. Here is the whole list, with what we cover and what we do not.
Entrance fees for The recovery fortnight
Galle FortNo ticket. The fort is a working town you walk into.
Free
- In the price
- Yes, we cover it
Sea turtle hatchery, Kosgoda
$3
- In the price
- Yes, we cover it
Madu Ganga river boat, two hoursOptional, and only worth it on a calm morning.
$18
- In the price
- No, paid on the day
Brief Garden at Bevis BawaOptional. Uneven paths and steps throughout.
$5
- In the price
- No, paid on the day
- Covered by us
- $3
- If you do the optional ones
- $23
Who this is for
- Travellers with a procedure already booked at a private hospital in Colombo who want the rest of it handled
- Anyone who wants a car and a driver on call rather than a taxi app in a country they do not know
- People travelling with a companion who should not spend the day sitting in a corridor
And who it is not
- Anyone who has not yet been accepted by a hospital or a consultant: we book travel around a date, and there is nothing to build until you have one
- Travellers looking for a recommendation on where or by whom to be treated, which is a decision for your own doctor and not for a tour operator
- Anyone wanting to see the island as well; this route deliberately goes to two places and stays in both
Included
- Private vehicle and driver on call for twelve days
- Eleven nights accommodation, held across a moveable discharge date
- Daily breakfast and three dinners
- All hospital and clinic transfers, with waiting time
- Airport meet and assist on arrival and departure
Not included
- All medical costs, consultations, procedures and medication
- Medical and travel insurance, which must cover the treatment
- International flights
- Visa or ETA
Make it yours
This is a starting shape, not a fixed departure. The changes people ask for most:
- Move the recovery half to the east coast if your date falls between May and September
- Extend the Bentota stay by any number of nights; it is the half of the trip that is easiest to lengthen
- Add a second room, or a second vehicle, for anyone travelling with you
- Swap the coast for the hills if you have been told to avoid heat and humidity
If this one is close but not right
The two-visit smile
Ten days around a course of dentistry, with the healing in the middle
- Length
- 10 days
- Pace
- Barely moves
- Bases
- 2 bases
From $1,450 · $145/day
Indicative, not yet costed
The Ayurveda fortnight
Fifteen days: Ayurveda at Beruwela, then a tour of the island
- Length
- 15 days
- Pace
- Barely moves
- Bases
- 7 bases
From $2,550 · $170/day
Indicative, not yet costed
The check-up week
Two days of tests, then five days in the hills
- Length
- 8 days
- Pace
- Gentle
- Bases
- 2 bases
From $1,180 · $148/day
Indicative, not yet costed