{"id":52292,"date":"2016-02-26T04:09:15","date_gmt":"2016-02-26T11:09:15","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.lankaweb.com\/news\/items\/?p=52292"},"modified":"2016-02-26T04:26:37","modified_gmt":"2016-02-26T11:26:37","slug":"neo-apartheid-at-grand-hotel-nuwara-eliya","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.lankaweb.com\/news\/items\/2016\/02\/26\/neo-apartheid-at-grand-hotel-nuwara-eliya\/","title":{"rendered":"Neo-Apartheid at Grand Hotel, Nuwara Eliya"},"content":{"rendered":"

Yoshi karunarathna <\/em><\/span><\/h2>\n

This a about emerging discrimination against our own people by our own people \u2026.<\/strong><\/em><\/p>\n

Today (19\/2\/2016) myself, my husband and his brother and wife, all Sri Lankans with latter two living in Canada, and all over 60 years of age and who have been civic-minded citizens holding professional and responsible jobs, went to the Thai Restaurant at the Grand Hotel, Nuwara Eliya, Sri Lanka.<\/span><\/p>\n

This is the third time I went there and sure it would be the last time.<\/p>\n

Five minutes into our sitting down and chit chatting a waiter walks up to our table and says we are too loud!! At first we did not realize what all that meant or the gravity of his accusation. Then the penny dropped!<\/p>\n

So we called back the waiter and asked him what he said and he said that the white customers at another table had complained that we are loud!! !@#++***@@!!! Hah!<\/p>\n

Before leaving the place we demanded that we speak to the manager and asked him what all this is about, and he said the same thing.<\/p>\n

We asked the manager, Mr. Tyrone David, on what basis he determined that the complaint should be taken up? Would he have taken it up if it was vice versa? What his idea of loudness in his restaurant is?<\/p>\n

We asked him to put up a notice at the entrance of the restaurant on the allowable decibel level of noise in this restaurant!! That would help many people whether they want to go into that fly-infested restaurant or not!<\/p>\n

Fly-infested \u2013 yes!! We had three flies hovering over our food and settling on the food!! On being asked to do something about the flies, a waitress brought a candle, but the flies seem to be permanent residents of the Thai Restaurant!!<\/p>\n

Finally we told the manager, that before his waiter and himself tell us on what voice decibel levels we should be speaking at, it would be in their interest to ensure that there are no flies in this Five-Star(??) Hotel\/Restaurant.<\/p>\n

And the people who are supposed to have complained should not be going to restaurants which are generally noisy (NOT rowdy) and lively anywhere in the world, but get themselves into hermitages or libraries.<\/p>\n

Having come home back to Kandy, curious to find out about the reviews of the Grand Hotel, I Googled and found the following posted on 11 Jan 2016 by Sara S of USA at
\nhttp:\/\/www.agoda.com\/grandhotel\/hotel\/nuwara-eliya-lk.html<\/a>:<\/p>\n

Perhaps this is a general issue with the hospitality industry in the region but as a Sri Lankan American, I felt the service was poor as the staff was “too busy” serving white guests with white glove service. I often had to wait a long time before staff arrived to take my order and attend to me. It was only when they realized I was a foreign passport holder when they bothered to attend to me. I noticed this was also an issue for any local Sri Lankan visiting as well. It’s an absolute shame and I hope the hotel will be in contact with me to discuss this less than pleasurable experience.<\/em><\/p>\n

And this posted by Asif C on 30 Dec 2015:<\/em>
\n We were in Sri Lanka for 7 days and had an amazing trip except the 2 nights at Grand Hotel which was very disappointing. Staff was inattentive, room furniture was falling apart, restaurants were of poor quality with extremely loud music and though not critical, no WiFi in rooms. The hotel now seems to cater more to budget group travelers and hence was crowded and staff did not pay attention to anybody. We went to Thai restaurant in the hotel for dinner and after waiting for more then an hour, walked out. The hotel was recommended by a Sri Lankan friend for its heritage but it clearly is a thing of the past and there are much better options in town.<\/em><\/p>\n

NOLTE: We should have eaten at one of those quaint little eateries at the edge of Lake Gregory or anywhere else saving the joy enjoyed before this nasty encounter at the Grand Hotel’s fly-infested Thai Restaurant, and at a fraction of the cost!!<\/strong><\/em><\/p>\n

Unquote<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

Dr Sarath Obeysekera<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Yoshi karunarathna This a about emerging discrimination against our own people by our own people \u2026. Today (19\/2\/2016) myself, my husband and his brother and wife, all Sri Lankans with latter two living in Canada, and all over 60 years of age and who have been civic-minded citizens holding professional and responsible jobs, went to […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[12],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-52292","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-forum"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.lankaweb.com\/news\/items\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/52292","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.lankaweb.com\/news\/items\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.lankaweb.com\/news\/items\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.lankaweb.com\/news\/items\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.lankaweb.com\/news\/items\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=52292"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.lankaweb.com\/news\/items\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/52292\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.lankaweb.com\/news\/items\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=52292"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.lankaweb.com\/news\/items\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=52292"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.lankaweb.com\/news\/items\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=52292"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}