You’re dreaming at…
KURULU BAY
Sri Lanka
Jungle reverie where stillness finds the chicest form
𓇼
WILDLY PLACED: Ahangama, Sri Lanka - Tucked between rice paddies, mangroves, and a gentle lagoon kissed by jungle.
EDITORIAL VIBE: A barefoot It-Girl meets Indiana Jones, in a setting designed by Gaia herself.
CORE PILLARS: Eco-architecture, heritage soul, barefoot immersion, healing movement.
MUSE MOOD: She wakes with herbal steam, sketches banyan roots by the dock, and whispers gratitude into the moss.
BEST TIME TO GO: December to April (balmy breezes, dreamy surf, soft golden light).
THE LOOK: Clay walls, woven palm textures, cool polished concrete, jungle-canopy reflections.
WHO’S IT FOR: Architects in linen, movement seekers, slow honeymooners, and soulful wanderers.
INDULGENCE SPECTRUM: Starting from USD$236 per villa per night.
Kurulu Bay doesn’t just invite you to slow down - it teaches you how. Built on a southern Sri Lankan lagoon where jungle meets tide, this sanctuary feels like it emerged fully-formed from a Nat Geo dream sequence. But the energy is fashion-forward: earthy but elevated, wild but exquisitely designed. It’s where your inner Indiana Jones meets your Vogue-coded alter ego.
The arrival is cinematic. As your tuk-tuk rolls over the narrow bridge, you’ll feel it - the shift. City static dissolves into stillness. Jungle silhouettes rise. Birdsong begins. It’s not just the destination that changes. It’s your pace, your breath, your lens.
Every villa is sculpted with intention - sun-baked clay, reclaimed wood, organic textiles. It’s tropical modernism with a soul. Nothing here feels mass-produced. Rainwater pools ripple in silence. Hammocks hold stories. Handwoven lanterns glow with the softness of moonlight. There’s no artifice, just atmosphere.
Kurulu Bay runs on a pulse older than Wi-Fi. Mornings are for barefoot yoga under the banyan. Afternoons for languid swims and tea sipped on the jetty as peacocks pass. Evenings are a symphony of cicadas and candlelight. No noise, no rush - just ritual.
Food is less about dining and more about devotion. Expect moringa, jackfruit, and sambol handed down from village grandmothers. Everything is local, seasonal, ancestral. Plates arrive like altars. Flavour meets feeling. Nourishment becomes a ceremony.
Kurulu Bay is also a movement space - quite literally. Pilates by the lily pond. Craniosacral therapy in open-air shalas. A studio designed not to contain, but to liberate. You don’t come here to work out. You come here to remember how it feels to move freely again.
This is not the Maldives, not Bali, not a cliché wellness retreat. Kurulu Bay is its own moodboard - Sri Lanka through a regenerative, slow-living lens. For the creatives, the contemplatives, the quietly radical.
It’s a whisper, not a shout. But once you’ve stayed - you’ll hear it forever.
There’s a rare kind of glamour here, not the glossy, high-shine kind, but the grounded, graceful kind that lingers in the scent of sandalwood and salt. You’ll find it in the open-air showers framed by banyan roots, in the linen robes soft from sun, and in the quiet confidence of a place that doesn’t try to be anything but itself. The staff know your name but never overstep. The design is polished but never performs. Kurulu Bay is not curated for clout - it’s curated for clarity.
KURULU BAY’S BEATING HEART
Kurulu Bay is less a hotel and more a sacred rhythm. The heart of this place beats in its banyan-framed movement shala, in the long exhale of guests floating in the lagoon, in shared silences around a herbal tea ceremony. What pulses here is presence. It’s where architecture meets atmosphere, and ritual replaces routine.
The SLOJOURN spark
FIRST. Living design. Earth-toned villas built from rammed earth, reclaimed timber and lime plaster, designed to merge with the land rather than sit on top of it.
SECOND. The Shala flow - an open-air studio perched over the lagoon. Movement, meditation, and moon rituals curated with soul.
THIRD. Botanical kitchen - menus rooted in healing and heritage. Think: Ayurvedic broths, coastal curries, and mango wood-fired bread.
Where you dwell
LOVED UP COUPLES or LONE RANGERS
Crusoe Suites
Each villa at Kurulu Bay is an ode to simplicity done soulfully. Clay-rendered walls, thatched palm ceilings, and terrazzo floors anchor the space. Interiors feature hand-dyed linens, locally carved furnishings, and open-air ensuites designed for rain rituals.
Solar-powered and naturally ventilated, your stay is in conversation with the land. You wake with filtered light, sleep with the scent of frangipani, and find barefoot freedom in every detail.
DON’T SLEEP ON THESE ROOMS (BUT DO SLEEP IN THEM)
GROUPS OF FRIENDS
The Kurulu House
(For a 1 month minimum stay)
LA FAMILIA
The two-bed villa
The art of living
This is the kind of place where mornings start in silence, not schedules. Sip herbal tea by the lagoon, move slowly through a breath-led yoga session, then slip into the water as egrets glide past. Days unfold with herbal scrubs, coastal hikes, journalling under palm canopies, or simply swinging in a hammock with a book that’s been waiting for your full attention.
Meals are shared, thoughtful, and mostly plant-based - curated with Ayurvedic intention and a hyper-local lens. Think: papaya ceviche, jackfruit roti, cinnamon and coconut broth. The kitchen doesn’t chase trends - it honours time, place, and intuition.
The spa experience is more whisper than wellness menu. Each treatment begins with a pulse check, a conversation, a breath. Oils are infused on-site. Sound healing drifts in on the breeze. It’s slow, sensory, sovereign.
The forever lens
-
WATER: Sourced from a local well, filtered and mineralised onsite. Guests are gifted refillable flasks. No plastic in sight.
WASTE: Compost-led kitchen, no single-use plastics, and all organic waste returned to the garden soil.
ARCHITECTURE: Built using local, climate-adapted materials - clay, lime, timber - with zero concrete foundations.
ENERGY: Solar-powered and designed for passive cooling. Even the lighting schedule follows circadian rhythms.
The together lens
-
Kurulu Bay doesn’t operate in isolation - it thrives in communion. From collaborating with village farmers to employing local craftspeople and wellness practitioners, the resort is woven into the rhythm of Ahangama. It hosts weekly Ayurvedic talks with local healers, supports nearby reforestation efforts, and offers movement scholarships to aspiring Sri Lankan practitioners.
Staying here isn’t just a moment of pause - it’s an active investment in the regeneration of place and people.
The take it with you
-
• A hand-loomed sarong dyed with turmeric and tea leaves.
• A herbal oil blend infused with cinnamon, clove, and coastal botanicals, blended by the in-house therapist.
• A bound field notebook from the studio - filled with your sketches, pressed petals, and journal pages.
• A sound recording of the lagoon at dusk - cicadas, birdsong, and the occasional monkey call.
• A slower nervous system, and the kind of clarity that doesn’t wear off on the flight home.
WE SLOJOURNED HERE: GRACE
“Kurulu Bay felt like someone had pressed pause on the outside world. It’s not just the jungle-backed lagoon or the candlelit dock dinners, it’s the energy. There’s a softness to the way time moves there. Everything felt intentional, from the Ayurvedic treatments to the way the staff knew exactly when to speak and when to let the silence hold. It’s the kind of place you leave lighter than you arrived - rewired, realigned, and wildly grateful.”
The ways you can move
SLOJOURN is a members-only platform for the new vanguard of conscious travellers. That’s you.
In that vain, we support a multitude of ways to book your travel.
Book directly with SLOJOURN’S travel team (we just don’t book flights, friend).
Book via our preferred travel partners that we can connect you with.
Use this as your guide and DIY your way through the world (love that for you, just take note of the destinations that prohibit this such as Bhutan, Socotra… etc.)