Issue link: https://bluemagazine.uberflip.com/i/26434
SET LIKE A JEWEL IN THE EMERALD-GREEN IN DIAN OCEAN, SRI LANKA IS SEPARATED FROM INDIA BY ONLY THE SEA AND THIN TRACES OF LAND BRIDGES THAT AT ONE TIME MADE IT POSSIBLE TO WALK FROM ONE COUNTRY TO THE OTHER. SRI LANKA IS AS MYTHICAL AND UNIQUE A PLACE AS SUCH A GEOGRAPHICAL ANOMALY WOULD SUGGEST. WILD ELEPHANTS AND EXOTIC FLOWERS PRE VAIL ON THE VERDANT LAND. POWERFUL SEAS WASH THE SHORES. We stepped off the plane into a blanket of humidity and an onslaught of new smells. It was hard not to crack a smile of excitement as we walke d across the sweltering tarmac toward the small airport terminal. I can recall with clarity the curious mix of aromas that engulfed us during those fi rst jet-lagged moments: diesel fumes, feces, curry powder. Traveling halfway around the world in search of uncrowded and flawless waves is a fortunate obsession. It can also be a remarkably selfish and ultimately disappointing Quest. Over the years, we have learned to choose destinations that offer colorful distractions from our perennial addiction to the sea. We knew Sri Lanka had good waves and we suspected the country would be pretty colorful. But we had no idea the extent of its cultural beauty. For any true traveler, surfer or lover of nature, Sri Lanka is the kind of place where you can both find and lose aspects of yourself within a very short time. Existing in extreme poverty, Sri Lanka manages to somehow tran scend its temporal plight. The country and its people are a perpetual source of inspiration to foreigners. There is something truly humbling about being invit ed to share a home-cooked meal with people who live on less than a dollar a day. The experience can Quickly wash away all consumerist and self-indulgent residues of first-world living. With satiated senses, we perused wildly green hill country from the open-air windows of a train, plodding through the mountains like an ancient, mechanical caterpillar. The train rose higher and higher through century-old chiseled rock tunnels to where sloping plantations produce some of the world's finest teas. Women tending the fields across the valleys speckled the landscape with their blazingly colorful saris. Merging with the cool, moun tainous clouds, we could faintly hear a colony of monkeys busy harvesting the forest's esoteric delicacies. All along the way, barefooted men peddled delicious homemade shrimp-chickpea patties and ripe pineapples sprinkled with ground chili powder. Musicians passed in and out of the cars playing accordions and homemade drums. The youngest, singing his heart out, was perhaps five years old. The train was just supposed to get our gear and us across the country, back down to the sea to where the waves were. But somehow, some where along the way, thoughts of surfing had been eclipsed by the whirling spectacle of locomotion and humanity that engulfed us on that first epic ride through the mountains. Sri Lanka exists in some other time, and we had been pleasantly transported. Maybe it was the fact that a ticket from one side of the country to the other cost as much as a ride on the subway back home, or that we had traveled less than 30 miles in four and a half hours. Whatever it was, we had been seduced. Just the day before we had been at home, struggling not to forget to pack things like toothpaste, stressed out about our jobs, our lives, the future. We packed what we thought was the minimum amount of gear neces sary for a surf trip to Sri Lanka. We'd brought fins, masks, snorkels, a spear gun, two surfboards, a dozen bars of wax, one collapsible fishing rod with reel, one fillet knife, one dive knife, one tent, two air mattresses, an under water camera, two 35-millimeter Nikons, one Hassleblad, enough batteries to operate a portable generator or a small outboard engine, clothes, books, enough film to cover a decade-long revolution, a digital recorder so as not to miss a peep and last, but not least, an eight-pound neoprene weight belt filled with lead shot. 45