While big grand hotels blaze a trail of luxury and picturesque comfort for the many and the well heeled, places like the NEPTUNE RESORT just a few kilometres down the road from Matara and fewer still from the famous Count De Mauny Island point at Weligama Bay, blaze a very personal and well defined trail of complete satisfaction for the few. The few who are lucky enough to find a vacant booking here.

I discovered it by accident. We were returning with a full family load in the 4x4 from a trip to the spectacularly interesting Yala game sanctuary. Our destination was Colombo. It was that evening point just before twilight and as often happens the desultory needs of bladders got more and more desperate in the back seats. Female needs in the vehicle demanded toilet facilities that were more elaborate than the perfunctory needs of males with their waterworks. Eyes searched desperately out of the window for a salubrious venue where these needs might be met with some dignity.

This part of Sri Lanka has fortunately been recently furbished with some really splendid just off the road venues. Most, newly built. The choice for a stop was made in a split second as a brand spanking new blue and white facade presented itself in front of us round the next comer. It was called the NEPTUNE RESORT. I stopped on the road and decided to crave the owner’s indulgence and duly dispatched a female passenger to ask if we might use their toilet facilities. She returned with a broad smile and a head full of information about the place. It was beguiling to say the least both in lay-out and price and we decided then and there that we would make a stopover there for the night and continue our journey in the morning. It was one of the most fortuitous decisions I have made because it was to establish the NEPTUNE RESORT in Pelena, Weligama, as the best and most favoured resort of my family on the entire southern coast line of Sri Lanka.

We drove into a relatively small but well manicured front space and parked the SUV. We unpacked and walked through into the resort compound on a neatly defined pathway bordered by beautifully kept garden fronds, to a series of 4 two storied Cabanas cleverly designed to maximise all the space available. We were met by the indulgently sweet smiling Yamuna Stein a local girl and the co-owner of the place, with her German husband Hans.

Emergency ablutions done we all went to our rooms. Each Cabana had a strong substantial four poster bed that could easily sleep three. The lower storey Cabana is air conditioned to meet mainly European tastes and the upper one had a ceiling fan that provided all the cooling any local occupant might need. I know that many locals find air conditioning a problem. Mosquito nets covered all beds. A well furbished en-suite tiled bathroom provided a shower and a hot water facility. It was all well draped and famished and the floor of the bedroom area beautifully tiled.

An attractive modern reception area lies in a separate building from the Cabanas. It has more accommodation built around it. In all the accommodation totals 20 rooms.

My family gathered together after installation and walked down the neat brick/stone pathway to the beach. I have been to most parts of the planet in my quests as a writer and seen the finest beaches from Cairns to Copacabana. I can without hyperbole say that this beach, and the sweeping bay it is part of, is undoubtedly one of the most beautiful I have seen anywhere in the world. The Neptune Resort is the best central vantage point to see it from. It is also the best vantage point to indulge in a golden topographical jewel, for in its sun, sea, surf, and surrounding tropical fronds, Paradise itself is indemnified from here, as the island of Sri Lanka. Standing there I defy any fair minded person to challenge this assertion. If there is a heaven full of all things good, this is where I would want to enter it.

We scanned the beach, breathing in its beauty and its bounty. Before me, indolent pink bodies lolled in their tanned splendour. In the waves, spindly purple-pink and deep brown forms sprang and twisted against white surf on the various challenges that mother nature threw at them from the blue deep. It is a surfers’ pantomime. One of the best surfing venues in all Sri Lanka. They come from all parts of the world for the ordered white lines of surf that spill excitement so exuberantly. I knew I had found a place I could never forsake.

And then it was dinner, eaten in a beautifully crafted restaurant set a bit away from modernity, and made from all that was old Sri Lanka. A fishing net of yore that doubled as a ceiling. The wheels of old bullock carts that doubled as entrance gates. Hessian wraps that stretched as walls. A hundred other pieces of Old Ceylon and new Sri Lanka woven to special effect as a montage on walls and ceiling alike. This was rustic charm at its tasteful best. A touch anachronistic, against the ultra modem Cabanas. All out of Yamuna Stein’s mind. And the food. A menu judged for cosmopolitan taste. And cooked by whom. Yes - you’ve guessed it. Yamuna Stein. She pleased my mob of wide delinquent tastes. That says it all for me.

There is something in the human eye that speaks of genuine welcome and that something these days seems to get rarer and rarer. The expedient fiscal acquisitive sense seems to blast our humanity from all quarters.

But in this place that sense of welcome and most of all the sense of family, pervades everywhere. All is well balanced with good management and efficient service. An unbeatable synchronicity that speaks of good international collaboration in both the social and business sense. The rooms are kept pristine and the table service prompt and kindly. Just ask and they will do all they can to oblige. It was done gladly and with pride.

I have been there recently. They have another feature there now. A new eating venue built on the back beach line of their compound, raised high above the beach itself, defying any tragic sweep that might come again to spoil their reverie. A second restaurant that overlooks the entire bay where you might have breakfast, lunch and dinner to the accompaniment of Neptune’s rock band. The beat of the sea.

I said goodbye to Hans and Yamuna Stein when I last saw them with the story of their liaison unfolding in my ears as I drove away.

I had to ask them how it all happened. Hans Stein is one of those ageless men. His eyes sparkle when he speaks and it was plain to see from his well contoured body that this man looks after himself, where in every feature I had let myself go.

They are two remarkable people with their daughter Tina and son Frank who is serving as a pilot in the German air force. They take their sense of each other to a remarkable conclusion. I could see my wife’s features rise with a face replete with sentiment at the romance in their story. It was inspiring to say the least. My wife and I had just celebrated our 40th wedding anniversary there ourselves, though they did not know it.