I drove for two hours in the middle of the night, from Colombo to Weligama. In the darkness, the stretch of highway and street-side storefronts looked somewhat standard. I collapsed into bed at 3 a.m., exhausted from the 24-hour journey from New York to Sri Lanka’s southern coast.
When the red sun streamed through my window a few hours later, any thought I’d had that this was an ordinary place dissipated. Looking out over the Indian Ocean, with Taprobane Island in the forefront and surfers in the background, it was clear that I’d arrived somewhere special.
There is a rawness to Sri Lanka—you get the sense that no one knows about it, and that could be because, for 26 years, from 1983 to 2009, the country was embroiled in a civil war that tore apart those on the inside and kept everyone else out. But before the Tamil Tigers and the government began their bloody campaigns, hippie surfers from England and Germany frequented the picture-perfect beaches in Unawatuna, Galle, and Hikkaduwa.
It turns out, at the top of the list of things people don’t know about Sri Lanka is that the country has a massive surf culture. Now, Australians and Europeans are returning to its shores for waves, yoga, and relaxation. Locals and tourists shuttle back and forth from Arugam Bay on the east coast during the summer months and beaches like Unawatuna and Wijaya on the southern tip in the winter—year-round swell means there’s always a reason to visit.
With the influx of tourists and money, an inevitable rush toward modernism has followed in the last five years (a new Marriott hotel, for example, looks horribly out of place). But, “the positives outweigh the negatives for sure,” said Natasha Sand, who’s half Sri Lankan, half Norwegian, and has lived at her family’s Nor Lanka hotel since before it opened in 2006. “We wouldn’t be here without tourists.” Indeed, because of their economic impact, local people have finally started to imagine a future.
Only 38 countries in the world allow Sri Lankans to enter without a visa, and since the government has made little effort to improve the standing of the passport, locals rarely leave the country (on my trip, they were abuzz with the news that Indonesia had recently allowed visa-free travel). As such, foreign visitors become a sort of means to education—and opportunity. “They see a little piece of America, they see a little piece of everywhere,” said Sand.
Thilli Mauranga, who works as a café manager at Ceylon Sliders hotel, spent most of his time surfing before one fateful day when he rescued a tourist from rocky waters. The grateful Englishman helped him attend hotel school and hired him to run his pizzeria in Arugam Bay, where he learned English and management skills.
Following a similar storyline, Shan Ediriweera was working as a fisherman to support his mom and sister after his father was killed in a terrorist attack during the war, until he met a visiting German who encouraged him to pursue his true passion: ayurvedic vegan cooking. Now, he hosts people in his 185-year-old family home, renamed Welle Gedara Homestay, teaching them how to make chickpea curry, coconut cheese, and banana pancakes. “Very qualified people come here,” Ediriweera said. “Sometimes with university degrees from Oxford and Cambridge. They teach me about business and marketing, and about different languages.” Elsewhere,
at Handunugoda Tea Estate, a tour guide spoke with travelers from Russia, Finland, Norway, and the US in each of their native languages, much to the delight of the tourists.
The people aren’t the only reason to plan a visit. Sri Lanka feels like India’s chiller cousin—related, but with less intense crowds and spices. Major attractions include Galle Fort, tea plantations in Kandy, Geoffrey Bawa’s Number 11 house in Colombo, and safaris at Yala National Park. But it’s the unassuming places that truly make the experience.
For example, the most delicious restaurants are the ones that look questionable at best: the modest Chef Akila’s Kitchen on the top of a cliff; the makeshift fish stall where you pick out your dinner at Fish Point; a storefront in Galle, Well Kade—meaning “the place by the sea”—which supposedly makes the best curry in the country.
A wander through the rice-paddy fields or a few stops on the picturesque red-and-teal trains puts the country’s beauty in perspective. Sunsets have a purple hue, and surfers stay in the water until the lilac fades to black.
As Sri Lanka hangs in the balance of gentrification and authenticity, you can’t help but hope that the country stays trapped in time, while also celebrating the optimism that’s now possible for its people. Go now, and soak in a country on the brink of transformation.