Between late December and early January, my mother, a good family friend and I travelled to the South West coast of Sri Lanka for a combined celebratory 18th and 50th birthday adventure. Arriving on Boxing Day, we made our way through the busy streets Colombo, Kandy and Unawatuna over the 10 day trip and experienced the many delights and not-so delights of the island, which experienced a civil war only 8 years ago between its Tamil and Sinhalese counterparts.
As someone who sees sustainability and environmental protection as so important, being in Colombo was at the least a wakeup call to the notion that many countries do not have the luxury of being able to implement sustainable strategies in their cities or even provide education on sustainable practises. The main river running throughout the city was heavily polluted, rubbish burning was frequent and the fumes from the passing rickshaws, motorbikes and outdated buses were suffocating. Before I delve any further into this, I would like to mention that my perspective is heavily skewed as I have never really visited what would be referred to as a less developed nation, having spent most of my time in Finland and Australia where environmental awareness is somewhat heightened. However, I was told by my mother and her friend that Sri Lanka was surprisingly clean compared to neighbouring India, referring to Sri Lanka as 'India 101' where they said it was a good introduction to Indian culture and its organised chaos. Of all the places we visited, I would refer to Colombo as my least preferred. I'm not naturally drawn to city chaos and spent most of the time in the hotels air-conditioned room and adjacent riverside pool. However, the food in Colombo was some of the best with several highly rated restaurants being local to the area, where I enjoyed a delicious stew of assorted vegetables simmered in cardamom pods and coconut milk. The name of the dish sadly escapes me. Dosa and it's associated chutneys were also heavily indulged in by all of us.
Around 4 days after our arrival in Colombo, we took a 3-hour train to the centre of the island, to Kandy, where my mother had visited 30 years ago, recalling elephants walking down the street and a tranquil valley town. However, we came to find that this representation didn't fit modern-day Kandy. Once again, cars and rickshaws littered the roads, while some salesmen tried to market their products to the public. We spent New Year's eve here, with our hotel perched on the hillside overlooking the town. During our time in Kandy, we visited their Botanical Garden as well as local markets. Kandy, in relation to Colombo was not particularly distinguished and did not curate a significant interest to me.
The final and longest portion of our stay was in Unawatuna, a small seaside village not far from Galle and the fort. This was ultimately my favourite destination as it reflected more what I was expecting of Sri Lanka, and provided some amazing snorkelling opportunities. We stayed in a small villa, French Lotus, which I would absolutely recommend. Not is the villa and it's interiors beautiful, it is owned by a lovely French couple and inhabited by their three rescued street dogs and resident peacock. Many restaurants were located right on the beach, which provided a pleasant dinner scenery.
If you are planning on travelling to Sri Lanka, I would definitely suggest sticking to the beachside towns along the southern and eastern coast and to try and enjoy the local food as much as possible unlike me who shyed away from most traditional dishes in the fear of spices I couldn't handle.
Comments