Situated within an hours’ drive from the Villa, guests could visit the Maha Seya Buddhist temple, dedicated to the submerged temples and villages during the construction of the nearby Kotmale Reservoir in the 1980’s. Opened in 2016, the Mahaweli Maha Seya is an impressive architectural feat that took over 33 years to build. The stupa standing tall at 289 feet is the second-highest in Sri Lanka and quite befitting as a monument to the localities affected by the largest construction project in Sri Lanka post-independence; the “Mahaweli development project” which has subsequently helped shape the region.