I’ve been wanting to write this for a while now, as winter is here and as we’re all leaving our summer memories behind us I wanted to share my trip to Sri Lanka in August.
I was visiting my motherland after seven years and didn’t know what to expect. I have to say that the plane ride from home to Sri Lanka was a mission within itself but nonetheless, we arrived safely which is all that mattered.
I had planned a bunch of places to see and I knew that it would be tough to visit all those places in just the span of a month. I understand that it wouldn’t be fair to expect my mom to take me everywhere since she was visiting Sri Lanka after seven years and was seeing her family and friends after a long time, but she tried to show me around Sri Lanka as much as she could in a few days. Our main purpose for the visit was actually to attend my cousin’s wedding which took place in the last week of August.
During my stay, I was able to visit Colombo, Kegalle, Kandy, Nuwara Eliya, Hambantota, Trincomalee, and Jaffna. All these places were completely different from each other, in terms of the weather the food and culture.
First, I arrived at my Periamma’s (mom’s elder sister) house in Colombo and I have to say it is a very cute house. It was surrounded by various different trees, they had a mango tree, a guava tree, and a palm tree. It was located further away from the city which made it a lot quieter and more peaceful. Colombo, the city, however, is really crowded and busy. And don’t even get me started with the traffic! My family jokes that if you can drive in Colombo you can drive in any part of the world (that’s how bad the driving is). Although Colombo is where my mom grew up a lot has changed about the place, and I wasn’t a huge fan, however, things were more accessible in Colombo whether it was food, transportation, or shopping compared to other parts of the country. People mostly came to Colombo to work or do their shopping.
A few days later I went to Negombo with my family and together we all planned to travel to Nuwara Eliya the following day. We made a few stops our first being at Kegalle to see the Pinnawala Elephant park. It wasn’t the best experience as we were treated badly by the security. Apparently, foreigners had to pay for a foreigner ticket which obviously cost more. It was unfair and I don’t know any other place that charges foreigners extra fees. Not only was the price a lot higher for foreigners but there was nothing special for the foreigners who were paying more, they saw the exact same thing and got the same experience as the locals. It wasn’t even about paying extra but the way we were treated was unacceptable, by the security guard. He was pushing us back and yelling instead of explaining to us in a nice manner. I’ve come to realize that foreigners were not treated as humans but more as a profit in these kinds of places and were constantly harassed for money. This nearly ruined my experience as I felt scared and uncomfortable but luckily I had my family by my side to cheer me up.
At the Pinnawala park, we saw the cute elephants and we had to cross the street to a river to see them bathe. The river had a really nice view of the elephants while they were playing with each other. We then left and headed to Kandy to see the Temple of the Tooth Relic.
Kandy was beautiful, it was surrounded by mostly mountains and rivers. At the temple, I was nearly stopped and questioned again but the security let me pass as they found another group to target. Once again it was upsetting and also inconsistent since the security guards only pick certain people to stop and question instead of all. Nonetheless, the Temple was beautiful and surrounded by an amazing view.
Temple of the Tooth Relic
We made it to Nuwara Eliya by night. The next morning, we visited the Sita Amman Temple in Nuwara Eliya, and it was beautiful, I was able to hear Tamil again which was nice and no one was harassed by anyone for being foreigners so that’s a plus! The Sita Amman Temple is known as the place where Hanuman first spotted Sita when she was kidnapped by Ravana. There is a river that runs behind the temple that is known as “Sita’s tears”, it represents the ongoing suffering of Sita’s silence. Beside the river, Hanuman’s footprint is on a rock as a mark of when he first saw Sita.
We then went to Victoria Park, then the Hanuman Temple which was located on a mountain. It was really nice. Finally, before coming back to Negombo, we visited the Damro tea factory, since Sri Lanka is famous for its tea, the tea plantations are actually a huge tourist attraction there. We had a tour of the factory and bought some tea before we left.
Most of my visits contained going to a lot of temples because they were extremely popular in Sri Lanka, that or Pinnisulas and beaches.
My next big visit was to Kataragama which was located in Hambantota. I visited three temples while I was there and I have to say they were nice and big. Since it was the weekend all three temples were extremely crowded, and I’ll be honest I was scared of getting lost or worse being suffocated to death. My favourite temple to visit out of all of them was Lakshmi Temple. It felt the most peaceful out of all of them. I even bought a small Ganesh statue there. We then went to Elumalai Temple which was located on top of this huge mountain. We had to take a jeep up there and back, which was probably the most fun and thrilling experience ever.
The next day, we got ready and were heading to Trincomalee. On our way there we stopped at The Golden Temple in Dambulla. We had to hike up a mountain to get there but it wasn’t so bad. Foreigners had to pay to enter but my brother and I entered with no questions being asked, however, my cousins were not allowed in because they were wearing shorts. There were nice Buddha paintings and statues inside located in caves created below a giant rock. That’s where the temple lay. Another funny incident occurred (it’s funny now but actually wasn’t at the time), a tour guide was talking about the history of the temple to a couple of caucasian foreigners and he was wearing shorts but the tourists wore shawls to cover their shorts. My mom actually pointed out the irony so loud that the tour guides can hear and they just stared at her in disbelief.
Next, we headed to Sigiriya and I still cannot believe that I climbed that 660 feet rock. I enjoy doing fun, adventurous things so I found the experience to be thrilling but my brother, on the other hand, was scared and couldn’t wait to go back down. If you don’t know about the history of Sigiriya's “The Lion Rock” I suggest that you search it up, it’s actually very interesting.
We got to Trinco at night and stayed at our relative's house. The next morning we visited three beautiful temples. One was the Konewaram temple, then there was the Pathrikali Amman Temple, and Sri Lakshmi Perumal Temple. All three temples were beautiful and unique.
We actually weren’t planning to go to Jaffna during this visit but it was a last-minute thing when my dad requested my uncle to take me there and I am so glad that he did. Jaffna is where my dad grew up. Out of all the places I went to in Sri Lanka, Jaffna was probably my favourite. I knew that before you couldn’t even enter Jaffna due to the war and tight security around the place but it’s developed and much better now. This was actually our first time visiting Jaffna but I felt like I was at home. The houses were so beautiful and the roads were so free because people mostly drove bikes and scooters there. It was cute to see ladies in sarees taking their kids on scooters to the temple. I even saw an old grandma peddling away on a bicycle wearing a saree. It took me by surprise since I can’t even ride a bicycle myself at this age anymore! I was able to visit my dad’s old college and see the grounds where he played cricket, his old house, and even the old theatre his family used to own. I got to see Sri Lanka’s largest library which was also located right across from my dad’s college. This library was actually burned down during the war and rebuilt after it ended. I didn’t get to go inside because it was closed but if I were to revisit Jaffna I think that’s the first place I would go and see. I really regret not being able to see it. I visited the Nallur Temple which was extremely beautiful and peaceful. When I hear the atrocities that took place in such a beautiful place it hurts to imagine the beautiful lives people have lost and where some were forced to rebuild. My dad’s family was one of them. I don’t know about other families but I can speak on behalf of mine and I know for a fact that if my dad’s family had a choice they would move back and live in Jaffna now but their well settled in Colombo to even think of moving back and of course reliving some of their traumas. I wish my grandparents were there to show me around Jaffna actually. I missed them a lot on my whole trip there. They passed away without seeing how Jaffna turned out after the war. I think I liked Jaffna the most because it was my dad’s home, a place where he left his mark of great memories and accomplishments. This whole trip I really missed him and being in Jaffna made me feel his presence. On our last night in Jaffna, we strolled down the beach for some time then went to the theatres to watch a Tamil movie, “Kolamaavu Kokila” and headed back to the lodge we were staying at. Oh, and if you do visit Jaffna definitely try the ice cream at Rajah Cream House or Rio Cream House, it is amazing!
After our trip to Jaffna, we returned to Colombo and started preparing for my cousin’s wedding which lasted for a week. I have to say that the wedding wasn’t the most memorable experience for me and was actually filled with stress since we were from the bride’s side. Has anyone else ever experienced that? I felt like everyone couldn’t wait until the wedding was over and once it was it was also time for us to leave as well.
Honestly, I was super excited to visit my motherland after seven years but I was kinda disappointed at first when things did not go as planned. I imagined a whole Tamil movie running in my head. Getting dressed in traditional clothing every day, eating delicious food and going on motorbike rides (until I saw the traffic and was like... okay, never mind). I thought that I would finally find the place where I belong because growing up in Canada I was attached to my culture but it made me feel as if I didn’t really belong in Canada. After going to Sri Lanka, I thought I would be accepted there but to my disappointment, I was also considered different there. Something that my uncle joked about was that “you’re a foreigner there and a foreigner here.” He was not wrong but at first, it really hurt to find out that there wasn’t a place where you can truly belong. However, now when I think of this I realized that we are all foreigners, we are adventurers, explorers-we are so curious and ambitious that we simply cannot stay in one place during our entire lifetime. We learn more about ourselves based on our experiences from outside of our comfort zone which means we typically can’t belong to one place but all. A part of us exists in every part of the world and we only discover it when we let ourselves go and set free (cheesy but true).
This trip has taught me much more than what I can simply learn in a classroom and I am truly grateful for that. Some of the experiences that I mentioned can sound disheartening but it’s just the truth. Unfortunately, not every place that we go to will accept us with open arms, but we should not make that hate ourselves for who we are. We should also learn that other parts of the world are different from where we come from. Accepting everyone’s differences is what will make travelling more enjoyable. And that is one of the biggest lessons I learned-try new things with an open mind. I’ll admit that the way certain things were run in Sri Lanka was unfair but we are in no position to change that, we can only change our attitude and be smarter about the places we visit by doing our own research. I found it difficult at first to adjust to a different setting, but I got used to it within a short amount of time. It took me a while to respect the mindset of people in Sri Lanka because it was very different from mine. I also learned that not everything has to go as planned in order to have a perfect trip, in fact, the more spontaneous a trip is the better. So the next time you travel whether is it to Sri Lanka or any other part of the world I hope my experience helps you with your travel adventure!
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