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Enjoy a very regenerative and inspiring yoga holiday led by the top teacher Melissa Smith. You will also experience massages, yoga Nidra, pranayama, meditation... and excursions to local cultural sites. Ulpotha is a place to unwind, be gentle with yourself, live close to nature, and simply be, or if you feel energetic, a wonderful place to exercise and rejuvenate. Melissa will be offering a dynamic slow flow in the mornings and a restorative practice in the evenings.
Accommodation in Ulpotha is in elegantly crafted traditional wattle and daub huts open to nature. Each bed is equipped with an excellent mosquito net. The huts can sleep either two or three people, so accommodation is on a shared basis.
All the huts at Ulpotha are allocated on a twin share basis. There are places for a maximum of 23 paying guests at any time and no single huts are available. All accommodations have shared showers and toilets, which are for the most part not en-suite.
Melissa will guide you through mindful, slow and empowering yoga sessions that include traditional yoga postures, somatic movement, mantra, restorative poses and meditation. Through this inquiry based practice, you will feel embodied, awake and aware in your body, mind and spirit. Some evenings you will venture to practice therapeutic Thai Yoga Massage, restorative yoga in addition to Richard’s Yoga Nidra sessions.
Ulpotha's natural charms lend themselves readily to a deeply satisfying experience of yoga. If ever there was a place made for Yoga, Ulpotha is it. Though Ulpotha was not planned at the outset as a Sri Lankan yoga center, yoga very quickly took its central place in the Ulpotha experience through a series of serendipitous events. Having done so, it is hard to imagine a place better suited to the practice of this ageless discipline. On your day of arrival, you will be collected from the airport by one of Ulpotha's excellent drivers and welcomed in Ulpotha with coconut juice, herbal tea, fruits, and healthy snacks.
The day begins with birdsong, as well as light tea and fruit before your dynamic morning class. Ulpotha invites leading teachers from around the world to come and share their gift of yoga with its guests. A variety of yoga styles are on offer to suit a wide range of preferences. Yoga is practiced in the yoga shala, which is essentially an open-sided hall that lets in nature's charms, from gentle breezes to bird songs.
On occasion, classes are conducted further afield: beneath the splaying branches of a Banyan tree, or on top of Monkey Rock, or below the neighboring temple - or wherever else takes the collective fancy of those present. Many of the world's most respected yoga teachers come to Ulpotha. As the teachers change every fortnight, several types of yoga - usually Hatha, Vinyasa, yoga therapeutics, Yin, Iyengar, and Ashtanga - are available at different times in the season.
Every morning, there is an optional yoga class in a large, open-sided building with a palm leaf roof, or in the cool dappled shade of a banyan tree. Teachers who come to Ulpotha are very experienced and are open to teaching many levels of students within a class. Some may also guide dawn walks in the beautifully wooded surrounding hills for those who wish. As Ulpotha attracts high-quality yoga instructors, some guests come mainly for yoga classes.
But since Ulpotha was never intended to be primarily a yoga center, there is no pressure to attend classes and life does not hinge on classes of any kind. So you will not feel like an outsider if yoga is not for you. This is a place to unwind, be gentle with yourself, live close to nature, and simply be, or if you feel energetic, a wonderful place to exercise and rejuvenate. Ulpotha provides yoga mats, wooden blocks, belts, small flat cushions, and bolsters in the Yoga Sri Lanka shala.
After breakfast, choose an Ayurveda detox package and enjoy the oil applications and herbal baths and steams under the supervision of the resident doctor or simply go for a swim or relax on a swing bed. Lunch is served in the Ambalama, where you can enjoy a delicious array of veggie dishes, juices, and teas while chatting with fellow guests. In the afternoon, have a massage with one of Ulpotha's outstanding international therapists, take a bike ride and visit the local village, roam the hills, visit the neighboring Buddhist temple, boat on the lake, or simply relax.
Afternoon classes held at sunset are restorative and include meditation and pranayama. Enjoy a sumptuous candlelit veggie dinner, borrow a book from the library, or chat with the owners. Head up to the lake and dance under the moonlight. For your information, the holiday cost includes two daily yoga classes of one and a half to two hours per day: one class in the morning around 7:30 a.m. and the second class in the evening around 5:00 p.m.
Please note that the yoga starts on the first Sunday evening and finishes after class on the final Saturday night to allow guests to check out by 10:00 a.m. on the final Sunday. There is no yoga, on the afternoon of the half-day excursion trip (week one) nor on the day of the excursion trip of week two.
Each class at Ulpotha will leave you feeling joyous and peaceful. Find inner strength in mind and body like never before.
Ulpotha is situated in the oldest inhabited region of Sri Lanka, an area rich in archaeological attractions and natural beauty. Each week a half-day excursion is organized. Participation is optional and external costs are not included, though transportation is. You are given a variety of options and one or two are chosen according to the majority of guest preference.
Melissa Smith embodies all things yoga and holds true to her personal belief in freedom. She is truly an example of living life! Melissa, Yoga Alliance ERYT® 500 in Yoga Therapeutics, Yoga Teacher Trainer, Thai Yoga Massage Practitioner and AcroYoga Level 2 Certified Teacher. Native Texan, Melissa currently lives in Calgary, Canada with her two sons and leads Love and Service Retreats in Southeast Asia, France and the United States.
Ulpotha is run as a self-sustained village, where the vast majority of staff are from immediately surrounding local villages and who live in and largely run Ulpotha themselves.
Ulpotha regularly invests in services and amenities for the local community (rebuilding and maintaining the reservoir that is central to local agriculture, creation of a free Ayurveda clinic for the surrounding villages, donations to the local hospitals and temples, all of which are done in the lowest profile way possible - ie. without acknowledgments, notices, quid pro quo demands, plaques, etc).
The Ayurvedic treatment center within Ulpotha, which serves paying guests, is used to fund the year-round free clinic for the surrounding villages. Only local products and services are made available to guests.
Only natural materials are used in the construction of guest and villagers' accommodation, the Ayurvedic treatment center, and free clinic (wattle and daub huts with palm roofing).
Much use has been made of clay, stone, wood, pottery, and fabrics that reflect traditional village practices and aesthetics. Ulpotha protects the native vegetation within the property (by replanting thousands of local species of trees, replanting of heritage strains of rice, vegetables, rare medicinal plants, etc.)
Ulpotha only uses organic farming practices that follow the lunar cycle and use no mechanical means. All crops are hand planted and harvested, while the fields are plowed and the rice is threshed by buffalo.
They protect the local wildlife by ensuring that their natural habitat is in the least possible way altered and that poachers and hunters are kept away. The local environment is also protected by maintaining the lake and sluice and natural water flows. No cars are allowed within Ulpotha and guests are encouraged to use bicycles when exploring the surrounding areas.
By design there is no electricity in Ulpotha and life is lived by the rhythm of the day. Paths and accommodation are lit by lamps and lanterns. A small solar power panel provides electricity for recharging handheld devices.
Food is cooked on open fires and there are no fridges (which were deemed by one of Ulpotha's founders as simply being a means of eating un-fresh food). Water comes from spring-fed wells and guests are encouraged to use it sparingly.
Sewage is treated onsite and no raw sewage is released directly into the environment. Waste is separated and sorted and recyclables (metals and glass) are removed. Guests are encouraged not to bring plastic waste onsite, or to take back what they might bring to their home country when they leave.
Before their arrival, guests are given an introduction as to what to expect through information provided via the website and a guest information pack.
Once in Ulpotha, guests are encouraged to learn more about the local culture and customs through immersion and interaction with the local villagers.
Guest participation is encouraged in local ceremonies and traditional gatherings while keeping them informed of locally acceptable behavior and appropriate dress code.
Guests are encouraged to visit social projects within the community (such as the free clinic) or in surrounding villages (schools for handicapped children, etc.) and to support such projects.
Ulpotha regularly holds meetings with and seeks feedback from local community leaders. Ulpotha is run by a committee of villagers with help from one of the owners, himself a local.
Click to see more vegetarian-friendly Yoga Retreats
The food at Ulpotha is simply delicious and very healthy. It is almost entirely vegan, naturally wheat free, with an abundance of fresh vegetables, organic red rice, and tropical fruit freshly picked largely from Ulpotha's gardens. A visit to Ulpotha is a good opportunity to detoxify your system without fuss.
Special diets cannot be catered for but it is fairly easy to pick and choose, depending on your taste, from the many dishes served at each meal. If there is anything that you feel that you simply can't do without (coffee, a gin tonic, chocolate, and the like) - Ulpotha suggests you bring it with you. As they have no electricity, all food is cooked fresh for each meal on open fires.
Breakfast is served from approximately 7 a.m. to 11 a.m. and consists of herbal teas, fresh fruit, fresh coconut water, herbal rice porridge, and a Sri Lankan breakfast cake.
Lunch served around midday is the main meal of the day and consists of a wide array of Sri Lankan vegetarian dishes, salads, Ulpotha heritage rice, fruits, curd, juice, and herbal tea.
Dinner is served after dusk and consists of an array of salads, Sri Lankan vegetarian dishes, juice, fruit, and herbal tea.
Following popular demand, Ulpotha has published a cookbook of some of the most favorite recipes of dishes served at Ulpotha - "A Kitchen in Paradise".
If during your stay you wish to visit one of the sites on your own or with a group of guests outside of group excursion days, your transport and itinerary can easily be arranged for you at Ulpotha at your own cost.
Order a custom-made cool cotton shirt or pants from the tailor or design your own outfits.
One massage per week from one of the visiting therapists is included in the price. The western massage treatments range from Thai, deep tissue massage, and aromatherapy to Hawaiian massage. They are done by fully qualified massage therapists from around the world. Massage styles change from month to month, as Ulpotha uses different massage experts each month.
So, if you yearn for a particular type of massage, it is wise to ask when it is available before booking your holiday.
Ulpotha also has an exciting program of Ayurveda treatments and, by the very definition of holistic, possesses the ideal climate and environment for the practice of this deeply therapeutic and traditional art. Ayurveda treatments are optional and bookable in advance due to limited capacity.
Bandaranaike International Airport
97 km
Transfer available for additional US$ 100 per person
Please book your flight to arrive at Sri Lanka's primary international airport, Bandaranaike International Airport (CMB) (also known as Katunayake International Airport, Negombo International Airport and Colombo International Airport), which is an hour North of the main city of Colombo and three hours to the Southwest of Ulpotha.
Direct flights with Sri Lankan Airlines take about 10 hours from Europe. Please be aware that departure from Europe tends to be the day before arrival and start of the holiday due to time difference and journey time.
Ulpotha will meet you at the airport and return you to the airport after your holiday. The cost per vehicle (maximum of two people) is 100 USD for one person and 115 USD for two people, each way. The transfer cost should be paid upon arrival in Ulpotha. Please inquire should you wish to be collected or dropped off at a location in Sri Lanka other than the airport.
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