Thinking through your travel ride!!

Thoughts while travelling in Sri Lanka

If one could ask, I’d say Sri Lanka is a one-stop destination for anyone in the exploratory mode. It’s surrounded by the Indian Ocean, a home for wildlife, beautiful waterfalls, jungles full of trees, and ancient architecture. So anyone would be lucky to travel around Sri Lanka. You pretty much get all the experiences a few hours apart.

Sachin and I got to explore this beautiful island for exactly 2 years. And it was the same time that the pandemic hit. So with so much going around, we managed to tick off quite a few adventures we had in our minds. But one day, we will go back to do a full tour around Sri Lanka.

When we travel, Anupa, usually in the passenger seat, get to notice the surroundings quite well (unless I’m catching up on arrears sleep, and yeah, Anupa is very observant).

This feeling is something I always get when we are on the wheels of a trip.

Further, as you move away from the urban cities in Sri Lanka, you notice how your surroundings change.

First high rise buildings, buzzing cities and vehicles, and then less crowded cities, a lot of trees and rocks in the Sri Lankan context. We are often on roadways with trees arching and protracting.

And you’d come across central towns with all shops for easy access which usually are the busiest. Few major town centres and shops for every city.

The more you travel, you’ll see bare lands and mere empty roads here and there, and a few vehicles and people walking.

Finally, you will see empty narrow roads, kids walking in uniforms to schools and tuition classes, and men and women walking under umbrellas.

If you notice people while you go on this journey, you’d notice a drastic difference as well; from all dressed up to simple attires like ‘flower printed’ dresses, shorts and sarongs.

If you stop for a quick snack, you will be treated to delicious authentic Sri Lankan food such as rice and curry with coconut sambol, string hoppers, hoppers etc.

And if you are lucky, you will see elephants crossing the road as well. Yes, Sri Lanka is blessed like that.

Throughout our trips from Colombo to all these areas, I’ve always struggled to comprehend these differences, as much as it is not bad, sometimes I feel very guilty and bad for myself as these people who live in the less urbanized or rural areas don’t have access to half of what we have. They have to travel miles and miles to get something specific, and they have to walk for hours to get to a bus.

But the busy birds who run on the race in the other part of the country, long for simple lifestyles like this. We are chasing behind many schedules, targets and goals every day, but every now and then all of us have come to realise that peace of mind is what makes you happy at the end of the day.

And for me, it lies when I am away with Sachin, resting or chasing a waterfall.

This is something for all of us to think about.

Second part of this article shall continue when we get to explore Canada!!