Sri Lanka is a fragile country, nursing wounds from not only the Tsunami that smashed the West, South and East Coast killing over 30,000 people in 2004, but also a brutal civil war that lasted over 25 years only finally ended in 2009.
But the Tsunami bound the people and the country’s allies (England playing a big part) closely together and it is nearly a decade since the war ended, with the Tamils, Hindus, Muslims, increasing import of Aussie expats, Elephants, Leopards, everyone getting along living in pretty peaceful times.
Tourism is currently booming with increasing numbers of travellers visiting the island and experiencing the culture, nature, wildlife, smiling faces and general exotic beauty that’s on offer, every year. This has obviously seen the country’s economy go pretty nuts and it is predicted to grow 7% per annum by 2019, one of the highest rates in the World! Who would have thought hey? But money and numbers are boring, so here are five other things you probably didn’t know about Sri Lanka:
Sri Lanka is a combination of India and Indo For Beginners
Kind of located between India and Indonesia, Sri Lanka is neither quite like India nor Indo, leaving it in somewhat of a curious middle ground picking off some traits from each other, with less harshness.
Take the food for example. Food in India is delicious, with curries that people travel the World for, but you will find curries of equal tastiness in the grottiest of curry houses all over Sri Lanka, usually for around 140RS all you can eat. 70p. Also, the simple rice and fish dishes, nasi goreng’s and fried noodles that have fueled surfers in Indonesia for years and locals for life are also found on the Sri Lankan Menu, which is again, very cost-effective if you eat locally.
The crowd situation is also a lot less hectic, with empty waves to be surfed daily. Trust me on this one…
Another similarity between Sri Lanka, India and Indo is the whole bartering thing. In India, it’s a horrible hassle, with the touts grabbing you by the arm forcing goods upon you and in Bali (Indonesia) it’s equally as mental, as you can easily spend 10 times the going rate for something if you don’t have your wits about you. However, in Sri Lanka, the difference is that the bartering is a friendly and enjoyable experience. They genuinely just love the conversation; it’s actually quite pleasant. I’ve been over to a handful of random Sri Lankan’s houses for Dinner with their whole family after what initially started off as a hat / wooden elephant sale.
However, the main comparison would be with the waves of Indonesia. No, you will not get Uluwatu length rides and power of waves, but you know what, Ulu’s at 6ft is straight up scary and the reef below will rip you to shreds. Sri Lanka, however, offers a more mellow version of these Indo style waves, yes breaking over reef but normally twice the depth meaning bad wounds are rare. The crowd situation is also a lot less hectic, with empty waves to be surfed daily. Trust me on this one…
You can get barreled
Really, you can get sick pits on boat coasts. I’m not going to name names but on the SW Coast about an hour from Hikkaduwa, there’s a Porthleven’esque wave that churns out these perfect little pits through every stage of the tide. Then over on the East Coast, near Yala East National Park, there’s a super sucky right that barrels from the takeoff, then gives you a nice wall to smash a few turns on. Seek and ye shall find.
No means yes
Not literally, but if you ask a shopkeeper if they have any coconuts or whatnot they will return the question with a nod of the head that implies no, but it actually means yes. Quite strange at first but maybe we’re just doing it wrong?
Hotels aren’t always hotels
So this one time we were stuck in a tuk-tuk in the middle of nowhere and decided that we weren’t going to get to our planned destination so we asked the driver to take us to the nearest hotel. Being pretty deep in the jungle we traveled along some bumpy roads for another half hour to then arrive at the hotel, which was actually a grimy local restaurant.
It turns out that back in the day if you wanted to go for a decent meal you would go to an actual hotel to get your dinner. Local business owners quite cleverly cottoned onto this trend and decided to call their little warungs XXX Hotel. Pretty clever stuff really.
National Parks have a 2km buffer zone
This is very cool and something I only found out last year after grabbing a moped to head to the National Park, only to be stopped in my tracks by a whole family of Elephants, which was epic, then a crocodile, which was scary, a load of warthogs and a few more elephants. A very blessed morning, which was cherished and we didn’t even visit the park. The reason for this abundance of wildlife as we were in the ‘Buffer Zone’, which has been created to keep on top of development and keep the animals happy. So you can see all of these wonderful creatures and more fully in their natural habitat.
There is also free healthcare and education with some free university education available to Sri Lankans, which is cool.
So there you have a few things that you probably didn’t know about Sri Lanka. Got any to add to the list? Feel free to comment below.