Spiritual Encounters and Wild Roads: A Sri Lanka Travel Adventure Part One
A Life-Changing Meeting in a Jungle Cave
One hot humid day last week I found myself clambering down from mountain crag to a remote cave high above the rain-forest. I happened to know that a well-known Buddhist guru would be there and I wanted a quiet word with him. Swathed in this saffron robes he beckoned me to sit next to him and we spoke, alone together, for 15 minutes. Even a cynical old newspaper hack like me was impressed. As you’d expect, the priest had a profound, calming and tranquil air about him.
“The Secret is to Know the Moment”
“The secret,” he sighed, “is to know yourself and to know the moment. To slow to a complete standstill and to really know yourself in that moment.”
Then he added: “Not that I will be slowing down today. After I’ve seen you lot, I’ve got to dash to the airport and fly to Switzerland.”
I couldn’t help but ask… “Why are you going there? To stash all the money those rich hippies give you in an untaxed Swiss bank account?”
Perhaps the heat had got to me. This is very much not the sort of thing you say to a famous guru. But the priest burst into gales of laughter. He was going to the Alps to run a series of retreats for a month, but he chuckled: “That is funny. I like your sense of humour.”
Which is when I decided to give away all my worldly possessions and spend the rest of my life serving as a monk in his jungle monastery, located at the very heart of beautiful, mysterious, magical, Sri Lanka.
Not really. But for a moment or two I could imagine why some people do it.
Reflections from the Road: A Journey Across Sri Lanka
I write about this interlude because I shall never forget those 15 minutes. But then, I shall never forget a great many other incidents that I’ve experienced and observed over the past fortnight while enjoying an extensive road-trip right around the island of Sri Lanka.
There are thousands of reasons why we leave the comfort of our homes and this particular strand of weekly articles is all about the more exciting, interesting and joyous things you can do when you’re out and about. “Experiential”. If there was one word to sum up the theme, that would be it. And, as I’ve alluded, I’ve just had my most “experiential” adventure since I started writing Hesp Out West. Indeed, so filled with rich experience, excitement and adventure was my recent journey, I’m going to divide my reflections into two articles.
Food is very much one reason to travel
Exploring the Road Less Travelled in Sri Lanka
Why had I climbed through a rain-forest to a remote cave to meet a guru? Because it was all part of a busy, fascinating and, in some ways, extreme itinerary devised by the British Guild of Travel Writers with Sri Lankan tourism. Extreme, because we adventured into just about every corner of that beautiful island - a journey that took us along 2000 kilometres of Sri Lanka’s crazy, scenic, hazardous, demanding and mesmerising roads.
Ridi Vihare Cave Temple
The itinerary was entitled The Road Less Travelled. By day-four we had changed that to Road More Travelled. Exhausting. At times too much. But I enjoyed every fascinating, joyous, mad and moving moment of it.
Cave Temples and Ancient Wisdom in Ridigama
That meeting with the guru is just one example… It occurred the day after we’d arrived after a direct long-haul flight from London with the excellent Sri Lankan Airlines. After a 6am start (following a wonderful gala dinner with Sri Lankan Tourism and the amazing Jetwing Hotel group) we found ourselves several hours north of Colombo visiting the Ridi Vihare Cave Temple, a 2nd-century Theravada Buddhist complex in the village of Ridigama.
We were shown around by Dr. Sinharaja Thammita, one of the country’s leading experts on Buddhist history and our day-long tour included not only rock caves and meditation, but also a visit to the centre’s Jungle Hermitage where we had a special lunch.
Craft, Culture and Sri Lankan Heritage
Village dancers cavorted and span, and monks showed us how the nation’s oldest written records were made, not on vellum, but on long thin fermented layers of Ola leaf. The monks demonstrated the process and let us have a go at inscribing our names on the treated leaves with needle like pens. The marks were then made permanent by a form of ink which is handmade at the temple.
Sigiriya and Jetwing’s Sustainable Tourism Vision
All this was followed by another two hour journey up to Sri Lanka’s most visited landmark - the spectacular citadel of Sigiriya rising sheer and impregnable out of the plains. The next day we visited this UNESCO world heritage site (built by King Kashyapa 1600 years ago), but as I wrote about the imposing Lion Rock last year I won’t deliver another lecture here.
Instead I’ll say something about Jetwing Hotels, many of which we stayed in during our journey. I don’t know about you, but belting around the planet leaves me with enough environmental guilt as it is, but sometimes the effects of tourism are enough to make you bow your head in shame. Not with Jetwing you won’t.
Poolside view Jetwing Lake
Eco-Conscious Hospitality with Jetwing Hotels
The family-owned group goes further than any other hotel corporation I’ve encountered to put sustainability at the forefront of its operations.
Jetwing Lake in thunderstorm
After we’d spent our first night at the company’s beautiful Jetwing Lagoon Wellness complex at Nelumbo (near Colombo), we settled in for a couple of nights at the Jetwing Lake, set in a lush 18 acre park not far from the touristy area of Sigiriya. Plenty to do and see around there, I can assure you - but we were also given a tour of the hotel’s sewerage system, power plants and water filtration works. Despite my misgivings, I was hugely impressed.
Many of their properties have wastewater treatment plants and onsite biogas digesters to deal with food waste. They have banned single-use plastics, they filter the local water in-house to make it healthy and drinkable (rather than import branded drinking water), they even have a state-of-the-art reed-bed system to help clean the sewerage. Added to that, Jetwing Lake also obtains a great deal of its power from sustainable fuel sources such as off-cuts from the cinnamon industry, which help to power its generators, as does a large solar farm in the grounds. And they grow most of their own fruit and veg.
Rural Life and Elephant Encounters
We were taken to the nearby “eco-village” of Hiriwadunna (via oxen cart) where we enjoyed an organic lunch in an open-sided village house prepared by local women. There was also a boat ride across a wonderful lily-filled lake where the boatman made use weird and wonderful hats made from the leaves and flowers of water plants. Very cooling they were too on such a hot day.
Hiriwadunna (via oxen cart
A tuk-tuk ride through forest paths took us back to the main road. We also went on the obligatory elephant safari in Habarana’s Hurulu Eco Park and duly saw a great many gentle giants wandering wild and free across.
Northern Adventures and Southern Soul
After two nights at Jetwing Lake we travelled north and I’m going to leave that part of the journey until next week as the upper half of Sri Lanka really is the road less travelled. It was the part most badly hit by the civil war - moreover, geographically and physically the area around Jaffna is very different from the south.
So I’ll round off by talking about our final journey to the southern tip of the island, by which I mean the area around Matara and Galle.
Tsunami Memorial and Galle Fort
Readers may recall that the coast here was badly hit by the tsunami of 2004. So much has been written about it and the 40,000 plus victims who lost their lives I’ll not go into the disaster here. However, if you ever visit the area, do visit the Tsunami Honganji Viharaya, a Buddhist temple on the coast where a 30-metre tall statue will take your breath away. In a bad way. Why? Because it was built to show people just how terrifyingly high the wave was which hit the coast. It’s a miracle there were any survivors at all.
30 metre Sri Lanka Tsunami Memorial
Luxury and Local Impact at Malabar Hills
Inland at Matara we had lunch at the lovely Malabar Hills hotel, which is very much an experiential kind of place, offering activities like bird watching and nature trekking (besides serving some of the best food in Sri Lanka). The hotel is involved with projects designed to employ and better the lives of local people - a wonderful thing in a country like Sri Lanka where money is short and wages are low.
Batik-Making and Boutique Hotels in Galle
One of the projects is a batik “factory” where local women produce beautiful designs to supply to the nation’s burgeoning fashion industry. And, of course, being a hotel led project we, as guests, were invited to have a lesson - which I thought would be a little boring and unnecessary in the heat but which turned out to be great fun. I am proud of my little square of batik which now sits on my desk.
Galle waterfront and fortress walls
At Galle we did the usual things (looked around the old town and walked along the fortress walls). It’s a pleasant town - a tad touristy but interesting and lovely all the same. We also met up with our excellent guide, Danushka Weerasekara of Blue Lanka Tours, and he’d brought his lovely family into town to meet us. It was a joy and an honour to meet the family of this most intelligent and helpful of men.
I’d happily spend a few days there next time I’m in Sri Lanka, maybe at the excellent Jetwing Lighthouse, a luxury resort perched on sea-cliffs just a mile north of town. A four night B&B stay there for two next week would cost around £455 - just over 50 quid each - not bad for such a high-end place.
Martin Hesp, Ben West and Rupert Parker in Galle
You could also stay up the coast at a delightful boutique hotel run by an Englishman and his Belgian wife. The Calamansi Cove resort is select and very beautiful - and it has one of the only safe beaches for swimmers along the entire coast.
Ending the Journey in Colombo’s Skyline
Our grand tour was rounded off with a stay at yet another Jetwing - this time the Jetwing Colombo Seven - a high-rise but extremely comfortable billet located in the heart of the capital, complete with rooftop bar and an adjacent infinity pool.
Jetwing Colombo rooftop pool
The view you enjoy while swimming there is breathtaking - but so too was everything on this trip, and I haven’t yet told you the half of it…
Panel
It is 160 miles to Heathrow from our West Country base, so I booked meet and greet parking at the airport with the Holiday Extras group. Their system is cheap and easy to use - I’d recommend them if you are ever having to park near one of the airports they service. https://www.holidayextras.com/
If you’re visiting Sri Lanka do consider using our tour guides Blue Lanka Tours, they are among the best in the business - https://www.bluelankatours.com/
And if you are after a really luxurious stay while you are in such a hot and busy country, consider Jetwing Hotels - they are truly fantastic with their highly sustainable practices and the have properties all over the country. https://www.jetwinghotels.com/
