Tea has been in Sri Lanka almost 150 years, and in a different time, old colonial planters set up shop in the hills, building rustic bungalows and estates to house their operations. Many of these I've had the good fortune of visiting, tucked away in perfect solitude, and there I often think about these men, now dead, and what lead them from their homes to such magnificent isolation when that imperialist fever ran so high.
I love the panoramic views of the high country. I wish I'd gone up there more, braving the windy roads and the traffic, because once there, it's always worth it. The little garden terraces are perfect for reading in, and the surrounding trails great for clearing your mind. The old bungalows smell of aging wood and when the doors and windows are open throughout the estate the cool breeze rushes through from one end to the other. At night, I like the study rooms best, quiet and easy. My memory one night alone with a book, drinking a negroni with a little Sinatra playing in the background, will be one of my favorites to keep tucked away when looking back on this place.
Down those hillsides in any direction, brings you to sea, sprawling sea, encircling this little world and blocking out the rest. Thousand year old kingdoms, decades of civil war, and a tsunami have influenced millions of people across 65,000 square kms, and yet, billions around the world can go their entire lives without ever even knowing a Sri Lanka exists. It is within this tiny bubble that I passed a year of my life, and over the course of that meandering journey I often found myself musing on the purpose of it all, and the benefits, being able to talk at length about truly random things of limited significance. I'm still not sure of the answer.
But the reminder here in Sri Lanka, perhaps more so than ever before, is that within those insulated bubbles lies all there is - life, love, sprawling histories, pride and struggle - for the people who live within the bubbles themselves. Much of that we on the outside are bound to never understand. We are resigned to the background, taking notes on what we see.
If I'm being honest, Sri Lanka will be a place I seldom think of again. At times it has brought me complete bliss, other times enormous frustration, but mostly it's just a place I passed a lot of time that went by faster than I can believe. There is nothing profound in it for me, this blip on a map, nothing that calls out or inspires feeling. And in that, I join the teams of legendary explorers and tourists and outsiders who passed by these coasts, and stayed awhile, thinking what a peculiar little island it was, all before heading off someplace else.
I love the panoramic views of the high country. I wish I'd gone up there more, braving the windy roads and the traffic, because once there, it's always worth it. The little garden terraces are perfect for reading in, and the surrounding trails great for clearing your mind. The old bungalows smell of aging wood and when the doors and windows are open throughout the estate the cool breeze rushes through from one end to the other. At night, I like the study rooms best, quiet and easy. My memory one night alone with a book, drinking a negroni with a little Sinatra playing in the background, will be one of my favorites to keep tucked away when looking back on this place.
But the reminder here in Sri Lanka, perhaps more so than ever before, is that within those insulated bubbles lies all there is - life, love, sprawling histories, pride and struggle - for the people who live within the bubbles themselves. Much of that we on the outside are bound to never understand. We are resigned to the background, taking notes on what we see.
If I'm being honest, Sri Lanka will be a place I seldom think of again. At times it has brought me complete bliss, other times enormous frustration, but mostly it's just a place I passed a lot of time that went by faster than I can believe. There is nothing profound in it for me, this blip on a map, nothing that calls out or inspires feeling. And in that, I join the teams of legendary explorers and tourists and outsiders who passed by these coasts, and stayed awhile, thinking what a peculiar little island it was, all before heading off someplace else.
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