Moon Eyes Beach Hotel

Moon Eyes is actually two places in one. Part of the site is actually the Crescent Bay hotel too. Both handle each other's bookings and help each other out so nothing massively has change since previous reviews aside from the tragedy that led to the changes. We stayed in two en suite air conditioned rooms and found them clean, comfortable, secure and just big enough. There are a wide range of other rooms AC and non AC available including a huge family room upstairs. Before I get to the main review here are the basics: Great room. Great price. Incredible beach access just down a side street. Lovely little site. Fantastic staff. Very chilled atmosphere. Moon eyes only offers fruit juices but it has a brilliant little shop. Crescent Bay were just starting to offer food when we were there as the season started properly. Their prices are very reasonable and we found everything we had there to be very tasty. Initially food was taking quite a while to come but this was because we were so early in the season and they weren't fully geared up. I would say it is a good idea to let them know in advance what you want if you are eating there. The site has a nice chilled sitting area around the back, a friendly dog called Ubu and all the geckos, palm squirrels and little iguanas you could ever want to see (not in the rooms though. We found these bug free and clean). Moon eyes is also the base for the local ADF charity. The Arugambay Development Forum is a group of local businesses owners and employees who do all they can to support the two local schools and the fishing villages. This area was devestated by the tsunami and the civil war and the ecology and community still have scars from both. The ADF promote environment awareness, work with NGOs, organised a half marathon whilst we were there and act as governors to the schools helping to raise funds and do citizenship education. Bear in mind that these are folk who every few years have to go and sign three year contracts to take low paid work in the Middle East to support their families and businesses and yet they still do all that they can to help those less fortunate than themselves. We had a week booked. Imam from Mooneyes showed us not just the rooms there but those in other hotels to try to get us the best deal. In fact Imam was just brilliant all round. He contacted us via Booking.com, whatsapp and email right from the moment we booked and kept in touch until we arrived. Before the week was up we clearly were going to stay longer. Imam, Mahroof and their team are just amazing. The tourist stuff first... Mahroof runs Kiwi Safari (one of three that operate out of Mooneyes) and he is awesome. He took us round the local safari park and guided us to the ancient Buddhist temple. Mahroof also stood up for us and negotiated good prices with surf shops and other trip providers as we were long staying customers. He is also a fantastic guy all round. Imam sorted everything. He never forced us but always had great suggestions. We did surf lessons, a safari, three ancient sites, a lagoon boat trip, visits to the schools (more on that later) and visits to the local villages. We ate in the homes of Arugambay folk and we were welcomed. Imam then sorted our onward journey and helped us get the best prices from then on. We first stayed on to help with photographing the half marathon. Then having seen the utter lack of any sort of resources in the local school I, as a teacher decided to show that practical science could still be taught with normal materials. The ADF did all they could to support and they will follow up on the work we did. The hotel is great. The people who run it are better. The team of Safari drivers, tuktuk drivers, motorcycle delivery guys, shop staff and so on who work so hard to get you the best possible holiday also work incredibly hard behind the scenes trying to help their community. We did not want to leave Mooneyes and we've changed our travel plans to go back at the end of our break following a tour of the island.