25/03/2022
Please excuse the long post – spoiler alert – it is for those that have thought about going to Sri Lanka or even going on a safari! If you haven’t, but my post makes you think about possibly visiting yourself one day, then you will be helping the people and Sri Lankan economy which is definitely struggling at the moment! 1 in 8 families in Sri Lanka are dependent on tourism and have been severely affected by the pandemic. We have just got back after two weeks touring the country and fell in love with this jewel in Asia’s crown!
Not the first country you would think of when contemplating a safari but we were lucky enough to see wildlife that we could only have dreamt of! A leopard lounging on a tree branch – looking very disdainfully at our jeep and a cute warthog (if that’s not any oxymoron) patiently waiting by our jeep as we clicked away on cameras at the big cat as it to say “don’t forget me” in all this fuss!! So many elephants, spotted deer, monkeys, crocodiles, and a huge number of different bird species and a country where peacocks are seemingly as common as a British sparrow!
Our first group touring holiday with we were not sure what to expect. We met with a bunch of strangers on Day one but said our goodbyes, after two weeks, to 10 new friends who we have shared fun and lasting memories with! Any doubts about “what if we don’t get on with some of the group” quickly evaporated as we realised we were sharing our holiday with a group of like-minded people (including our very personable and knowledgeable Sri Lankan guide Upul) and the others were from 5 different countries.
The roads in Sri Lanka are chaotic! Whether you are in a city, by the coast, or in the country, road -sense are just not two words that fit together here! Cars, buses, and tuk-tuks all mingle together in a friendly, jostling mele and all the while keeping up a constant hooting, no matter what time of day! So, we were grateful to have the expertise of our driver but still have the fun of several tuk-tuk rides in our free time.
A 50 shades of green country with stunning landscapes, time-warped colonial buildings, dating back from the Portuguese, Dutch, and British periods of occupation. Also, ancient, majestic monuments and religious shrines (predominantly Buddhist). You can come across a sacred temple along the most innocuous of paths or roads and nearly always find someone worshipping and making an offering of lit candles, burning incense, fruit, flowers, and even water or drinks. We were fascinated by the tangled and complex history of the country, unravelled, and revealed bit by bit by our guide Upul every day.
There have been so many different things to discover and experience but what will remain foremost as the beauty of Sri Lanka is not its long, wide sandy beaches fringed with palm trees, or its diverse wildlife, nor the incredible monuments or the lush green tea plantations but it the Sri Lankan people! Without exception (and we met and talked to a lot of people including Buddhist monks) we met with friendliness and all seemed genuinely interested where we were from. It soon became clear that there is a real fondness for Britain and its people, and we would find ourselves engaged in long conversations, even to the pulling down of their face masks to show how widely they were smiling! They were happy to stop what they were doing and to ask about the places we had visited so far - and all were delighted to have the confirmation that we plan to return for a future visit!
Although I’m happy that my diet is not rice and curry three times a day (as it is for the majority of Sri Lankans) we did appreciate just how many curries can be served up with a huge variety of both meat and vegetarian (with vegan on the rise) recipes and we ate in everything from a good roadside café to an old colonial golf club in "Little England" to a local’s home and a beachside bar.
A more basic marvel was how the parents of school children here manage to keep their clothes so white! Uniform for junior and senior girls and boys is all white! And we never saw an advertisement for Persil once! We did learn though from a herbalist and spice garden guide that limes are pretty much the cure for everything including soiled whites!
Ayurvedic medicine and health practices have been around for thousands of years. Still very much practised now, my husband and I enjoyed several massages that left us feeling in a blissful state and for 90 mins. cost no more than £17.00!
There was one public holiday that fell across our two weeks – Full Moon Day. A day when no alcohol is served in any restaurant or hotel or able to be purchased. Celebrated every full moon, ours happened on March 17th (St Patrick's Day) – which didn’t go down well with a bubbly group of girls on tour who we met and were from Kerry, Cork and Dublin!
I would never have thought that any time in the future when I hear Beethoven’s Fur Elise that I would be transported back to Sri Lanka. But it was a recurring ‘theme song’ albeit in a very high-pitched tone – coming from the quirky bread van tuk-tuks that frequent the towns from morning to dusk, their windows piled high with baked goods including home-baked buns, ‘crocodile buns’ and loaves of bread.
Finally, a fascinating fact (well I thought so) in 1985 there were only 10 tuk-tuks on the island and people would come out of their houses to see them as they were such a novelty. Now they number in excess of 1.5 million and some are even electric – a godsend in a country where they can queue up for 8 hours to get fuel (and we think we have it bad!).
To be honest, I could go on and on, but appreciate that’s not very Facebook business-friendly. So, hope you enjoy some of the photos from my trip and if you did want any more information about potentially booking a holiday through me in Sri Lanka either as a group tour or bespoke, do let me know ………….as long as you have a spare hour or so to chat.
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