Sri Lanka is well known for its hill towns and their hotels oozing faded colonial charm.

Now there is a new entrant in this category, in the central hill country, 40 kilometers south of the Unesco world heritage city of Kandy. It's Wildflower Hall, run by former long-term Jakarta resident, Rotarian, economist and consultant with Castle Asia, Peter Duncan.

Wildflower Hall sits on a ridge above the "Great Valley" tea plantation, past the town of Deltota, on a windy secondary road similar to many in the hills of rural Java. The journey, for first-timers, is a bit of an adventure. We had to ask directions a couple of times where the road forks in the small towns on the way.

Wildflower Hall enjoys panoramic views of the surrounding hill country. Perched on the ridge at 800 meters above sea level, it also gets some brisk winds on occasion. Peter says "fresh air" is one of the selling points!

The architecture of the building is in the style of an imposing English manor house; you would likely think it has been there since colonial times. In fact, it was built as recently as 2001, also by former Jakarta residents, Colin and Arlene Geddes. Arlene planned to establish an aromatherapy spa business there similar to one she had previously started at Tapos near Jakarta.

Changes in their circumstances meant they could not go ahead, and they asked Peter, who had already partly invested in the venture, if he would be interested in taking over.

The offer came at a good time, because Peter, having largely retired from work and looking for something new, found himself at a bit of a loose end in his Cisarua home.

Undaunted by the fact he was about to turn 80, and that he had no previous experience in hotel management, Peter took the plunge. Surely an example to the dithering 50-somethings wondering if it's too late to reinvent themselves!

He's got plenty to do. Not all guest rooms are finished, neither is the internal staircase to the second floor (and there's another one outside). There's also lots to do outside, running the vegetable garden and planting trees to give more shelter and variety to the property.

To fund the improvements, it is important to have a steady flow of visitors to keep the cash coming in. Peter is embarking on a program to market Wildflower Hall to travel operators in Colombo, to include it among stops for visitors touring the island.

Among the small number of staff are Raja the manager, Ravi his assistant, Abdul the cook, Rachman the gardener and Chunchie in marketing. But they can all multi-task as needed.

Most of the staff are ethnically Tamils. Originally Tamils from south India were brought to Sri Lanka by the British in the 1800s, to work on the tea plantations in the hill country, thus the sobriquet "plantation Tamils". Most of them are Hindu, and have lived largely peacefully alongside the Buddhist Singhalese majority in the center and south of Sri Lanka.

As such, they are quite distinct from Tamils concentrated in the north and northeast of Sri Lanka. This Tamil population can trace its history on the island back more than 2000 years.

Outside those in north and northeastern Sri Lanka, Tamils elsewhere in Sri Lanka have not generally involved themselves in the bitter conflict (ended last year) that was raging between the LTTE or "Tamil tigers" in the north, and the Sri Lankan army.

Peter makes the one-hour trip down to Kandy, Sri Lanka's second city, once every 10 days or so. To do that he uses a "three-wheeler", a vehicle familiar to those in Jakarta known as a Bajaj.

In Sri Lanka, these are the ubiquitous form of local and not-so-local transport (Peter says he's taken one all the way from Wildflower Hall to Colombo airport, about 150 kilometers), but unlike Jakarta's bashed up orange fleet, in Sri Lanka the three-wheeler (as they call them) is proudly cared for, scrupulously cleaned, painted and accessorized.

If you happen to be in Sri Lanka, pay Peter a visit. He's keen to keep in touch with what's going on in Jakarta, and at US$20 a night per double room, plus another $9 per person for meals, it won't bust your budget.

With a shared dining and reading/TV room it's a cozy guesthouse style. There's also one large room that can accommodate half a dozen people or more, so it's ideal for a small school group wanting to hike in the forests or in the tea plantations on the hills nearby.

Facilities are modest but adequate, and it makes a welcoming stop on the way from Kandy up to Nuwara Eliya, the other well-known hill country stop.

http://wildflowerhallsrilanka.blogspot.com/

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