---
type: Video
title: "Best 5 Star Hotel in Kandy, SRI LANKA 🇱🇰"
description: Four YouTubers check into a five-star hotel in Kandy for the wi-fi rather than the luxury — a free room upgrade, a Sri Lankan breakfast buffet, and a chicken biryani that arrives with sauce and an egg in it.
tags: [sri-lanka, kandy, hotels, wifi, breakfast, biryani, sponsored]
timestamp: 2026-08-06T14:20:00Z
resource: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TESJWUAc3ug
video_id: TESJWUAc3ug
upload_date: 2022-02-22
duration: 2146
---

# Best 5 Star Hotel in Kandy, SRI LANKA 🇱🇰

Three or four nights in a five-star hotel in [Kandy](/places/kandy.md) with
[Mac](/people/mac.md), [Ali](/people/ali.md) and
[Luke](/people/luke-damant.md), and the honest reason is stated in the first two
minutes: **they came for the wi-fi.**

They had been in a remote part of the country with bad internet, and all four of
them are uploading daily. The first thing that happens on arrival is a speed
test, before anyone looks at a room.

*Obs: the hotel gave the group a free upgrade to a deluxe room. Under the
bundle's rule on advertising it is therefore described but not named. The video
also carries a paid sponsor read for an online learning platform, unrelated to
travel; nothing from it is recorded here.*

## Why a five-star hotel is a work decision

- **Bad wi-fi is the constraint on the whole trip**, not comfort. Four channels,
  daily uploads, and hundreds of gigabytes to push.
- **The lobby test comes back at about 12.9 Mbps**, which Harry judges survivable.
  In the room Mac reads 52.9 down and 35.6 up, and says it is better than most
  places he has stayed — Harry says out loud that he isn't sure he believes it.
- **The restaurant doubles as an office**, and so does the balcony. He films them
  editing in every room of the hotel and calls it two birds with one stone.

## The hotel

- **About 100 rooms**, with a gym, a spa and salon, a sky lounge, a rooftop pool
  and a restaurant.
- **Staff give them a full tour nobody asked for**, which he notes with some
  surprise.
- **They were upgraded to a deluxe room** for nothing.
- **The minibar is empty** because of the pandemic — you scan a QR code to order.
- **The room has a balcony over the city and the mountains**, a bathtub, and a
  clock that gives world times.
- **The price is never said on camera.** Harry asks a staff member why it isn't
  more expensive and is told it is a promotion, with the hotel busy; the
  description says only that they paid a reasonable price.

**What you can see from it**: the Bahirawakanda temple and its Buddha statue on
the hill, floodlit at night; a cricket ground with a school match in progress;
and the Temple of the Sacred Tooth, which is hidden behind trees but is, he is
told, the thing to look at after dark.

## The food

**Dinner** is a chicken biryani in what he is told is the Sri Lankan style, and
the differences are the point: it comes **with a sauce**, which he did not expect
of biryani, plus nuts, raisins, pineapple and a whole egg buried in the rice. A
cooling yoghurt sauce comes alongside. He rates it highly and says the sweetness
from the dried fruit is what makes it.

**Breakfast** is a buffet of continental and Sri Lankan food together:

- **String hoppers**, which he is told are the thing to have and which have run
  out before he gets there.
- **Milk rice**, dosa made to order, an omelette station, vegetable sambar, beef
  curry, chicken curry, and a potato dish in a sauce he compares to Thai green
  curry — his favourite thing on the table.
- **A bakery section and a fruit section**, the latter unusually wide: pear and
  apple as well as the pineapple and watermelon he says is standard.

He is warned not to sit outside because of the crows, ignores it, and spends the
meal fighting off flies. His broader note is that he likes seeing how hotel
breakfast changes country to country — Colombia, England and America each
different — and that he always has an omelette wherever he is.

## Key moments

- `[01:03]` The speed test, before the room.
- `[02:05]` The reason for the hotel, stated: they need the wi-fi.
- `[04:10]` Asking a staff member why it isn't more expensive.
- `[08:19]` The gym, the spa and the salon.
- `[09:53]` What is visible from the roof, including the temple hidden by trees.
- `[12:27]` 52.9 down, 35.6 up, and Harry's scepticism.
- `[12:57]` The free upgrade to a deluxe room.
- `[15:30]` Sri Lankan-style biryani: sauce, nuts, raisins, egg.
- `[19:07]` The sponsor read begins.
- `[22:40]` String hoppers, sold out, and the rest of the buffet.
- `[26:14]` On hotel breakfasts around the world.

## Extracted pages

- [Sri Lanka](/countries/sri-lanka.md)
- [Kandy](/places/kandy.md)
- [Mac](/people/mac.md)
- [Ali](/people/ali.md)
- [Luke Damant](/people/luke-damant.md)
- [Book for the wi-fi when you work on the road](/tips/book-for-the-wifi-when-you-work-on-the-road.md)