lifeofpri # 1 - Paid sex in Sri Lanka

When the pandemic began in 2020, and all “physical” travel ceased, I decided to embark on my own adventure around the world. I read books from different from different countries. Just in that year, I got a sneak peak into Syria, Iraq, Nigeria, Ghana, Chile and some 20 other countries.

This really helped resurrect my reading habit. Now that I am trying to write more, I thought why not embark on a similar writing adventure around the world. So, this is going to be a 30-part series on my travels around the world.

Sri Lanka

I am reading this book called This Divided Island by Samanth Subramanian. Samanth spent time in Sri Lanka in 2011, trying to capture the war and its effect on Sri Lanka. It’s written predominantly from a Tamil perspective, but one that I was unfamiliar with during previous visits to Sri Lanka.

As I read this book, the picture that’s constantly on my mind is of the bare roads interspersed with check points I’d seen on our way to Trincomalee in 2014. This was a family trip with my husband, mum, dad and sister.

As we were travelling through the Trincomalee District, I remember thinking that there was something really eerie, quiet and deserted about the whole area. But I knew very little about the civil war then, except that it was over.

In 2010, Sri Lanka was the first foreign country I ever visited. It was close enough to get to and wouldn’t be too foreign especially for a first time traveller (me), who’d never set foot outside of India. So, my husband and I decided that it would be the perfect place for us to go on our honeymoon.

Clearly, we weren’t the only ones who thought that. We bumped into several other newly married couples in the airport. How did I know? There’s no way to hide behind the henna and the red bangles, is there?

There’s something truly cheesy and awkward about finding other couples who are also on a honeymoon at the same time as you. But I can’t explain what it is.

Anyway, when we got to Sri Lanka, we first went to Kandy, and stayed at this really nice property called Amaaya hills. So far, there was nothing “foreign” about Sri Lanka for me as an Indian.

For the untrained ear, Sinhalese doesn’t sound very different from a combination of several South Indian languages. The tropical scenery isn’t very different from what you’d see in South India. You could’ve easily assumed you were in a more anglicised version of a Kerala or a Tamil Nadu.

We went to the tooth relic temple in Kandy the following evening. We were walking behind this large group of people, who didn’t look very different from us. Yet we were stopped at the counter to have our passports checked, and to pay a different fees from the locals. That’s when it hit me that we’re foreigners here.

Up until that point in life, my definition on foreigners was “white people”. It felt strange to be a “foreigner” here, despite not being white?

As we travelled to Sigiriya, Dambulla, Nuwara Iliya, Bentota and Colombo through the rest of that trip, we travelled as foreigners. We paid the SAARC countries’ fees everywhere, were taken to tea gardens, spice gardens, gem museums and bought tonnes of souvenirs from tourist gift shops.

The only “local” thing that we possibly did on this trip was visiting this beautiful home decor store called Paradise Road, based on a recommendation by friend, born in Sri Lanka. This continues to be one of my favourite human-made nooks in the world.

While we had several memorable first-time experiences from rafting in Kitulgula to enjoying several local Sri Lankan meals, looking back, the whole trip was a very sheltered experience. It was like cultural window shopping.

It left us wanting more.

*

Now, thinking back, Sri Lanka was so raw from the war in 2010, yet we saw no traces of it during our travels. It was partly my ignorance, but now, I wonder, if this is what countries who rely so heavily on tourism do - shelter the tourists at any cost?

It felt like having paid sex. You never truly see anything beyond what the person chooses to expose.

Over the years, through a variety of travel, I have learnt that in order to truly understand a place, you need to live there, experience the land like a local does and become one with it.

But if you can’t, reading takes you very very close.

When I was reading Shehan Karunatilaka’s “The Seven Moons of Maali Almeida”, I saw a side of Sri Lanka I never have, and I probably never will. It takes a certain level of intimacy with a country to write a story like that - your love is secure enough to take the liberty to troll it.

You know like how it’s the people we’re closest to that we ever show our anger to, and the ones we struggle to confess our undying love for.

*

When I went back to Sri Lanka in 2014, it was yet another sheltered experience. But this time, I was fully cognisant of the limitations of my experience. It was my parents’ first trip abroad, so I wanted to make sure it is as comfortable as possible.

Once again, we enjoyed several local meals - you see, its much like South Indian food, so it was quite easy for my parents to get by. The excessive use of coconut in their food makes everything so delicious.

By this point, the husband had turned over to the dark side (thanks to our travels) and I had more company to try out fresh sea food. But given that vegetarians outnumbered us, we didn’t get to explore as much as we would’ve liked.

The only other time that I’ve had Sri Lankan food is outside of Sri Lanka, at Hoppers in London, but I can assure you that migrant food is a different breed altogether. More about that in an edition about Netherlands maybe?

On our 2014 family trip to Sri Lanka, we included some history to make it interesting for the parents - Anuradhapura and Polonnaruwa, but it was quite underwhelming. It was really crowded, just as most pilgrimage sites in India are.

And as expected, my dad was enthralled by the Bodhi Tree that I couldn’t be bothered seeing, crawling through the crowds. I am not particularly religious and I don’t feel FOMO when I don’t experience something that someone else has recommended.

The rest of my family travels differently.

We drove down to Trincomalee in the East. There were vast stretches of forced barrenness along the highway with army check posts here and there. Our driver, Mr. Lucky, who seemed to have no trouble navigating the rest of Sri Lanka, was suddenly asking around for directions to get to our resort.

I don’t think I could really tell if the people here were any different, but there were surely more local tourists here than at Bentota, for example.

But now, as I am learning more about the Eelam war now, I wonder if revolutions are like well-funded start ups with inflated valuations and a terrible business model.

No matter how great the intentions are, they are bound to burn more than they can build and eventually bring down everyone who’s ever invested in them.

We barely spent a night in Trincomalee, but there was something special about this place - the beach was absolutely stunning, relatively untouched by tourism, and somewhat reluctant to tourist intrusion.

Recently, I re-watched Kannathil Muthamittal, and I really wanted to go back to Sri Lanka, to may be see a different side that I’d never had the chance to experience.

Sometimes I wonder, what it would be like to live there for a few months, just talking to the locals, living amongst them, eating their food and trying to live my life as I would anywhere else in the world.

Would I get any more intimate with Sri Lanka than I’ve managed to in the past?