Sri Lanka Summary

Manual labour in the fields.

The much more recognizable city infrastructure. 

Local markets proliferate.

A rural clean water borehole.

 Our team of driver, guide and assistant.

 Road side fruit markets.

 Fresh fish and meat markets without refrigeration.

 Girls riding in the back of a truck.

 The paintings that got John in trouble when he photographed them.

 The new, mostly empty motorway.

 In our business class seat with champagne and orange juice.

Our group of travelers.

Summary

Everyone talks about first world and third world countries, but no one talks about second world countries. I assume that they are countries that fit neither the higher or lower designation and contain components of both. Sri Lanka surely fits in that category. It does not have the level of poverty that places like Ethiopia and Madagascar have, but neither does it have the level of infrastructure that the WEIRD countries do, (Western, Educated, Industrialized, Rich and Democratic (this anachronism is from my book I Contain Multitudes)). It does have conventional shops and shopping areas and there are identifiable brand names shops and some of the western brands of restaurants, but there are still the street shops and huts that spring up when people are desperate to make money and will sell anything. There are also more readily identifiable property lines between houses or business. Houses often have areas in front of them before the street, but without our kind of lawn.  Although most city people have water in their homes, rural areas don’t and still carry clean drinking water home from wells.

Sri Lanka was first colonized by the Portuguese who recognized the value of the natural harbour and the port for a stopping place to get fresh food, water and to trade. It was a much needed and strategically located stop over on the east-west trade between Europe and the Orient. The Dutch and British followed after the Portuguese.

Ceylon was a name given to the island by the colonial powers. Ceylon became Sri Lanka when it gained its independence from Britain in 1948 but, it wasn’t until 1972 that Queen Elizabeth allowed them to change the name to ‘prosperous land’: Sri Lanka.

The population of the country is 21 million, with Colombo being the largest city housing about 800 000 people and 5.6 million in the larger metropolitan area.

Sri Lanka has a number of religions with 70% being Buddhist, 13 % Hindu (including the Tamils) 9% Muslim and the rest are Christian and others. They all seem to live together harmoniously, that is after the Tamil Tiger civil war of the 80’s and 90’s.

The traditional greeting here is: AYUBOWAN, which means much the same as the Indian NAMASTE.

Main exports: 1. People, as servants, migrant workers, nannies and laborers who send money back to support their families. 2. Agriculture: tea, rubber and coconut (used to be rice, but now kids don’t want to do the work their parents did, which is a sign of a developing country). 3. The garment industry, to support our need for cheap clothing made in underpaid sweat shops, and 4. Tourism.

Sad fact: 30 000 people died here during the tsunami on Boxing Day 2004, mostly along the south and eastern coast.

All the main roads were in good repair, but were overcrowded with local buses, trucks, tuk tuks, tourist vehicles and private cars, which makes driving slow and a bit like a game of chicken. There is definitely a pecking order of vehicle traffic with size being the determining factor. Larger vehicles will pass slower ones anywhere, on turns, on country roads or in towns and will take both lanes forcing smaller, slower ones like tuk tuks and motorcycles onto the margins. They use their horns endlessly in a virtual conversation of ‘here I am’, ‘I am coming through’, ‘move over’. Like Ethiopia, there are precious few traffic lights or stop lights. All the vehicles just work their way through the intersections, or roundabouts like water flowing down the road, it just flows between finding all the gaps and narrowly missing everything. But surprisingly, we saw no accidents and all the drivers just seem to accept the chaos and gingerly dodge obstacles. Sam says there is no road rage. It is not a place I would want to ride my bike. We only saw two really good roads. The best road is a dual carriageway that goes up the west coast of the island from the southern beach area to Colombo, Negombo and the airport. It was new and very well maintained and so far under used.

The country is beautifully green and lush, unlike desert dry Ethiopia. It is tropical, hot and humid. The island has several different climatic zones from the beaches to the central highlands where the weather and vegetation are quite different.

We did see some garbage trucks collecting rubbish but there is still lots of litter that is not being put in the correct place or dealt with appropriately.

The people are very warm and friendly, and we never felt unwelcome or unsafe. They accepted us without staring at us like we were from Mars. Even security people at the airport smiled and were friendly. After our gin and tonic at the airport lounge we went through the security check and after being patted down for whatever, I said ‘that was fun’ to which he replied, ‘do you want a massage’.

This country is much more agricultural than Ethiopia, growing a wide variety of crops and raising much less livestock. We saw no donkeys, sheep, goats and only a few horses and some cattle. We did see a large milk production factory and I wondered where all the cows were.

Wildlife: I was disappointed in the variety of birds. We didn’t see many except in Yala NP. The cities have thousands of crows and some pigeons. There are far fewer crows in the countryside. We saw a few animals in the national park, including Asian elephants and a much sought after leopard.

This is a country that is welcoming, set up well for tourism and is easy to get around. The only real challenge might be to actually drive on the roads. The food is good and plentiful, flavourful and tasty. Most of the local people eat with their hands, which does not appeal to me. The food is all quite spicy, which doesn’t necessarily mean hot, just spiced and flavourful. The people eat a lot of rice and curry, for pretty much all meals. They don’t eat what I call a normal breakfast of cereal, eggs or toast, but that is available at hotel restaurants for the tourists. 

All of which I think places Sri Lanka firmly in the category of second world country as a developing country that is carving its identity in the world.