Surf camps in Ahangama

Ahangama runs on one wave and on its evenings. The wave is The Rock, a reef peak off Kabalana with urchins on the bottom: an intermediate's break, good for five days out of seven in January. If you have never surfed, the first thing to ask any camp here is where the lessons actually happen.

Three houses answer that cleanly. PURE sits on Kathaluwa beach, with a sand-bottom break outside the door, no rocks and no current, and Midigama's reefs fifteen minutes away; boards cost €10 a day on top. Soul & Surf has an easy left in its private cove, right in front of its nine rooms, and calls itself more grown up than a standard surf camp. Dreamsea teaches in front of the hotel, four students per instructor, and serves only three dinners a week.

Travelling alone? At Lapoint everyone arrives on the same Monday, average age twenty-six, and the people climbing out of the airport van are your week. Gota Dagua builds its week around the table, six dinners served together, for €399 without lessons, so it suits someone who already surfs a little. Sunshinestories feeds you from breakfast to dinner and splits its dorms into men's and women's, at €975 a week.

To fly home surfing better, Ticket to Ride runs like a training block: tuk-tuk at quarter past six, video, conditioning, five students per coach at most. Solas is a single villa facing The Rock with private rooms only, right for a couple who can already stand. Lotus, a colonial villa run by a mother and her son, puts yoga, massage and a filmed review of every session on the same footing as the surf; it does not say where it surfs, so ask if you are starting out.

In the evening this is the village on the coast where people go out, rooftops and bars facing the sunset, and every night without an included dinner is spent there. From May to October several houses drop their prices while the south-west monsoon blows, and Ticket to Ride moves its lessons to Weligama Bay.