Writing
Paradise Isn’t Always Quiet
A loud rumble of a vehicle passes close to my right side as I walk along the dusty, dry street, narrowly avoiding uneven slabs of pavement and stepping over open drain covers.
Welcome to the hustle of southern Sri Lanka. A place where beautiful seas and beaches sit in uneasy tandem with the overcrowded coastal road. Where nature is in direct competition with humanity’s relentless pursuit of growth at all costs.
A loud rumble of a vehicle passes close to my right side as I walk along the dusty, dry street, narrowly avoiding uneven slabs of pavement and stepping over open drain covers.
Welcome to the hustle of southern Sri Lanka. A place where beautiful seas and beaches sit in uneasy tandem with the overcrowded coastal road. Where nature is in direct competition with humanity’s relentless pursuit of growth at all costs.
A simple walk to the shop for water often turns into an assault course for the senses. A Leyland Ashok bus hurtles through town at unnecessary speed, brushing the already heavy air across your body with even greater intensity, as a seemingly endless fleet of tuk tuks passes by asking if you need a ride.
After almost two weeks away, the prospect of returning to the beach brings a flicker of excitement.
It doesn’t last long.
Ashok Leyland Bus - A Sri Lankan menace
I’d read the beach would be busy with people drawn by the turtles, but I hadn’t expected quite this. Masses of people huddle around the giant animals at the shoreline, lured in by food bought from beach vendors and tossed into the shallows. Visitors crowd around, phones raised, inappropriate poses readied and edging closer and closer.
On one occasion my wife pulls a plastic bag (used for the aforementioned food) from the water, left drifting where a turtle might easily have swallowed it. Nearby, she gently but firmly tells a woman to stop pushing one of the animals for a better photo.
It feels wrong. Upsetting. A little hollow.
A circus, not the quiet encounter with wildlife I had imagined.
It reminds me that travel isn’t always soft edges and easy beauty.
Relaxation at Ahangama Secret Beach
Two days later we finally find a beach that ticks the most important boxes: quiet, safe and calm. We decompress almost immediately. Each sip of the chilled king coconut from the nearby beach hut a literal tonic to the heat exhaustion.
The repetition of sea-sunbathe-sea-hydrate becoming a seductive mantra for relaxation and unwinding. The day passes slowly and upon returning to the main road, there’s almost a feeling of the outside world being one of calm. And then it hits you again - the offers of a tuk tuk ride, hurtling blue buses and weaving mopeds. The sea breeze is behind you and it’s a race back to the comfort of the air conditioned room for respite.
The cycle continues for a few days and we settle into a nicely compromised daily ritual. Morning light and walks. A cafe. Then to the beach before returning for a rest and then braving the busy streets once more for our evening meal.
Respite at The Kip, Ahangama
We depart the south coast and head to Udawalawe National Park and the following day take a safari.
Our jeep crawls through winding jungle roads past tropical birds and groups of monkeys who look like that incredibly ugly bloke we all know. Over bumpy tracks into vast watery plains with colourful peacocks and gurning water buffalo (there’s the ugly man again!).
And finally, the king of Udawalawe. The elephant.
We see a few lone males and small family groups along the way, but nothing beat the final roll of the dice when we turned down a quiet back road and stumbled upon a small herd eating and bathing in the muddy water.
Total bliss just sitting in silence. The only sound being the spraying of water and mud onto their hot brown skin, watching these beautiful creatures go about their day peacefully from touching distance.
And at that moment I realise just how much noise we had been carrying inside and what paradise really means to me.
Elephants bathing in the mud, Uduwalawe
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Fruit, Heat, Repeat
It’s hot and humid and we are stood uneasily inside a badly lit shop. Sharp knives are carelessly left on any flat surface that can be found. A large spider crawls up a wooden beam directly behind my wife and settles, part-camouflaged beneath a heap of pineapples. There’s a bucket of discarded leaves, skins and chopped ends of fruit rotting away as flies circle its circumference.
Welcome to the fruit stall.
Since travelling we’ve become attuned to what’s in season and what each place does best, and have subsequently spiralled into some kind of unnamed fruit addiction. One that now quietly drives the intent of our days.
It’s hot and humid and we are stood uneasily inside a badly lit shop. Sharp knives are carelessly left on any flat surface that can be found. A large spider crawls up a wooden beam directly behind my wife and settles, part-camouflaged beneath a heap of pineapples. There’s a bucket of discarded leaves, skins and chopped ends of fruit rotting away as flies circle its circumference.
Welcome to the fruit stall.
Since travelling we’ve become attuned to what’s in season and what each place does best, and have subsequently spiralled into some kind of unnamed fruit addiction. One that now quietly drives the intent of our days.
In Thailand, mango is king. A serving at breakfast with yoghurt. A mango smoothie with lunch to cool off after a day at the beach. The ubiquitous mango sticky rice from a street vendor, shared as dessert from a plastic tray.
Mango smoothies, Koh Kood - bliss!
Dragon fruit, with its otherworldly shape and bright purple flesh speckled with black seeds. The tartness of passion fruit, enough to awaken the sleepiest mid-afternoon lull. Pineapple with its thirst-quenching sweetness.
Visiting a street market in the evening and grabbing a fruit smoothie for around 50p, freshly made in front of you, is now one of life’s simple pleasures. The quiet corner in a pub temporarily dethroned by a plastic stool in a makeshift seating area alongside endless rows of parked scooters.
Galle fruit market, Sri Lanka
In Sri Lanka, mango is readily available, but it’s much more floral in flavour. Something to be savoured rather than devoured.
Banana dominates here. Hanging from every nook and cranny of a stall. Big ones, little ones and even red ones. Sweeter and creamier than those I’m used to at home. A visit to the fruit vendor here often results in a free sample pressed into your hand as you navigate the busy streets.
Daily fruit stall rituals
Back at the fruit stall, the elderly Sri Lankan man is hacking away at a papaya, revealing pale orange flesh that reminds me of the hues of the sun setting over the Indian Ocean. The dark brown seeds are scooped away and forgotten. Eating the cool papaya feels like the perfect antidote to the most humid of days.
The stall holder hands us our clear plastic bag of fruity goodness, sticky to the touch. We pay and dodge our way back past a mound of bananas on the floor.
Another deal done. Another bag of tropical goodness secured.
The daily ritual of the fruit stall isn’t always pretty, but it is always rewarding.
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Setting Sun
Each day, everywhere in the world, the sun will set (extreme solstice points notwithstanding). Sometimes it’s visible, other times it’s hidden behind a thick blanket of overcast sky. On the motorway, outside your home, or at the beach. Often in places you’ll never return to.
The business of day-to-day life usually makes most of us forget this daily occurrence. Travelling allows permission to stop, and quite often provides the perfect canvas for it to project its palettes of reds, oranges, pinks and purples onto the most beautiful landscapes.
Each day, everywhere in the world, the sun will set (extreme solstice points notwithstanding). Sometimes it’s visible, other times it’s hidden behind a thick blanket of overcast sky. On the motorway, outside your home, or at the beach. Often in places you’ll never return to.
The busyness of day-to-day life usually makes most of us forget this daily occurrence. Travelling allows permission to stop, and quite often provides the perfect canvas for the sun to project its palettes of reds, oranges, pinks and purples onto the most beautiful landscapes.
It becomes part of the daily rhythm around which all other activities revolve.
“Shall we eat before, during, or after?”
“Accompanying beer, or not?”
“Are you taking your camera?”
Sunset in Koh Kood
My favourite sunsets are, unsurprisingly, by the sea. The reflective glow, the ever-changing tones on the glistening water as the sun gets progressively lower.
In Sicily, sat on the balcony of an Airbnb in Ortigia, it felt theatrical. Swallows murmurating above in a large mass of black specks, a fishing boat crossing the sun on the water as it headed back to the harbour. A glass of zibibbo in one hand, a fork loaded with fresh fennel and sardines in the other.
A sun set in serenity. Ortigia, Sicily.
In Koh Kood, sunset arrives quietly, as beach revellers reluctantly filter off home, leaving the odd person to swim in the cooling sea. A group plays volleyball, seemingly unaware of the spectacle behind them. Others cradle an ice-cold Chang and look out to sea, hypnotised by the changing of the day.
Wherever you may be, sunsets don’t ask anything of you. They don’t care what you’re doing. There’s no judgement, no measure of your performance, no requirement that you have everything figured out. They simply come and go, reminding you that today is all but done.
Bang Bao beach, Koh Kood, Thailand.
And that’s somehow comforting. A reminder that endings can be gentle, even when your life is in transition.
The sun sets not as a conclusion or a performative display. Just as a pause. Tomorrow it rises once more, and we do it all again.
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The ceiling fans whip above our heads at an alarming rate, trying to keep pace with the mid-afternoon humidity as those of us sampling afternoon tea on the veranda at the Amangalla Hotel in Galle attempt to tread the fine line between refinement and simply keeping cool, all while downing cups of hot tea.
It is a slightly nostalgic afternoon for a period of time of which I have no living knowledge. Anemoia, as my musician friend Yarni would say.
The building itself has lived several lives. Once the headquarters of the Dutch East India Company, later Galle’s first hotel under British rule, and now a quietly polished luxury stay.
Like many places on the island, Sri Lanka still carries clues of its European colonial past.