Tangalle is the least commercialised of Sri Lanka’s major beach destinations and, for many, the most beautiful – wide quiet bays, the Rekawa turtle nesting beach where five species come ashore between May and October, and a coast where the loudest sound at night is the ocean. It has long been the preferred south coast stop for Scandinavian and Northern European travellers for precisely this reason: no commercial strip, no crowds, just a stretch of southern Sri Lanka that has been allowed to stay itself.