Back in the 1970s and early 1980s, the twin beaches of Passekudah and Kalkudah were the east coast’s most developed, beautiful and famous tourist destinations, home to a modest cluster of resort hotels and drawing a steady string of European tourists to this far-flung corner of the island. The outbreak of war brought an end to all that. The hotels were first abandoned, and subsequently blown up by the LTTE to prevent them being used by the Sri Lankan Army.
Now the area is on the brink of a second and even more dramatic come back, earmarked as a special tourist development zone and already in the throes of enormous development. The formerly deserted arc of Passekudah Bay is now seen with the concrete skeletons of no fewer than 13 new hotels under construction with some already functioning in full bloom as tourist resorts such as the Maalu Maalu resort, which are likely to transform this sleepy village into the east coast’s answer to Beruwala within just a couple of years.
