Eco camp stay in the Yala jungle

A Pure Nature Living Experience 

Tree Tops Jungle Lodge is an eco-camp in Yala. It is situated in Buttala, in wild natural forest at a remote location. This is a semi-permanent eco camp operated by a locally recruited jungle team and the stay is an authentic nature experience, with a great sense of place.

We have built the place using mud and canvas as well as a re-wilded property and a vision.  The place is also based on the concept that our large jungle property is reserved for a truly limited number of guests. That’s why there are only three tented rooms.  All come with a king-size double bed, private toilet and shower in the tent.

Our ethos is to operate this jungle camp in Yala at a high hospitality level but with very little “hotel development” in order to preserve the original atmosphere.  In this way offering a taste of a wild Sri Lankan environment that is experienced in a silent and individual way, that feels good for the place, for the guests, for the wildlife, for the birds. View more about our concept and ethos

Tented chalet Rooms

Our purist set up with a few tented rooms and a mud-hut restaurant is meant to make an impression of a bush camp that conveys an unfiltered sense of the protected forest next to us.  Minimal facilitates are balanced and brought to life by a well-trained team of native people, impeccable service, tasty curry meals, local landscape walks and bird watching with our team.

The Tented Rooms

Featuring :

  • Eco jungle camp in Yala with a one-of-its-kind location in wild jungle. This is in the Buttala area, north of Yala National Park
  • Our 30 square meter tented chalet rooms are made on elevated cement platforms, makes a clean and safe interior environment
  • The rooms are designed for simple living in style, and and a great and emotional outdoor experience
  • The size of the tented rooms is devised to sleep two adults. They come with high ceilings and feel quite spacious
  • Each room has a large 6.5 x 7 square meter king-size bed. This four-poster bed has mosquito net, carefully selected foam mattresses as well as proper bedding and tailor made pillows
  • Bed-side solar powered lamps. Torches for outside use
  • Drinking water in clay jugs
  • En-suite bathroom fitted with ceramic sink, running water, shower, toilet, a big mirror
  • The shower has "cold" water (not really very cold in a hot tropical climate )
  • Each tent room has a large verandah with views into surrounding jungle and forest covered
  •        mountains
  • You can request a twin-bed set up
  • There is sufficient space to arrange one extra bed

The Mud Hut Restaurant

A thatched mud hut restaurant offers an atmospheric setting for candlelit dinners and with lounge space where guests can read a book and enjoy the views. In daytime a superb spot for bird watching.  In front of the mud hut restaurant a water hole is frequented by many species of birds.

The pond, the water hole

The distance to the water hole is sufficient to leave the pond with a quite undisturbed feel for the birds, while still close enough to observe birds with the high quality Nikon binoculars we provide.   

The pond is also used, unseen, at night by various species of wild animals; some of them are wild boar, spotted deer and sambhar deer.  In certain parts of the year also used by wild elephants. 

In such exciting situations where an elephant is observed, it is required and expected that guests understand the place as an … observation platform … and behave very discrete and with respect for the wild animals. 

First of all – Try to be very quiet. Move with great care. Even better don’t move.  Try just to stay where you are. Because wild animals do not appreciate when two-legged humans move close to them. 

A Sense of Locality

In Chena and Elephant Country

As an accommodation and camp living adventure the stay has been created to get the feel of sleeping under canvas in a jungle, while participating in an ancient local lifestyle next to wild habitats.

A wild living experience infused with an authentic cultural dimension, inspired by the local lifestyle of a traditional paddy- and chena farmers.Literally, the word chena farmer denotes slash-and-burn cultivation, an ancient method of farming in jungles, cultivating on plots of land in open clearings in the jungle.In wild regions farmers stay overnight in simple shelters, mud- or tree-huts, in cultivated plots – next to natural habitat from where wild animals may appear.

Still today, in the wet and harvest season farmers guard their fields at night, watching out for elephants, wild boar and other animals that may eat and destroy the rice and other crops at night.  

The lodge team are native people and the ancient chena and farmer lifestyle is the traditional background of all our staff members. All grew up in families living this type of subsistence economy, farming culture existence.

Guests staying with us will take part in the conditions and impression of the ancient bufferzone, chena life style, living and sleeping next to wild habitat. 

With our remote location, guests will experience an unusual, fundamental contrast between day and night.  In  … chena country  …  day and night are two really different chapters of the 24 hours day.  

Electricity and Light

In the wilderness, we are off grid and there is only limited electric power, generated by a solar power system, sufficient to charge camera batteries,mobile phones, laptops etc.

A generator is used only, when we pump water from our well … or need to start a blender to make fruit juices.

Inside the tented room there are solar powered bed lamps. At night outdoor areas on the site are only illuminated by hurricanes. 

The restaurant is illuminated by candle light – only. 

Lodge Life and Service

Our staff is not formally educated and qualified – but they manage and find practical solutions too all challenges even under rough conditions.

Contact the Staff Team

There is no such thing as an actual hotel reception. You can find team members in the mud-hut restaurant or in the kitchen.

They are always happy to serve a cup of tea and coffee, a fruit juice, soft-drink as well as assist you with any requirement.

Water

Tree Tops Jungle Lodge operates as a camp and with homemade solutions to daily needs such as light and water.The water supply is ensured through the practical solutions we have designed ourselves. Water is pumped from our own freshwater well, constructed by us.

The team will pump water from the well and into a water tank in the camp which generates running water in the tented bathroom. Rain falls with seasonal variation. At certain times of the year drought can occur periodically. There will always be water but in the dry season guests may be requested to use water with more care.

Length of Stay

To get the most out of the lodge, stay at least 3 nights.

It takes time to acclimatize to the heat and the different life-style; the longer you stay, the more in tune you feel with the natural environment.

An alternative safari camp

We perfectly understand the need to make holiday planning or budget priorities.   Guests on shorter stays are also welcomed for a great, condensed, nature experience. You can choose Tree Tops Jungle Lodge as a safari camp with a difference. A wild nature living experience combined with safari tours. If time is short, even for one or two nights. Block 5 of Yala National Park is just a 35 minutes transfer away from our camp property.