Sri Lanka family holiday, 14 days

Planet

The Anthropocene era of global warming and climate change is upon us and the effects are already being felt in Sri Lanka. Aberrant monsoons, unseasonal weather patterns and the ‘bleaching’ of coral reefs due to rising ocean temperatures have all been recorded in Sri Lanka in recent times. The swinging pendulum of overly intense or non-existent monsoons has caused floods, landslides and massive soil erosion or drought, loss of crops and livestock, and more soil erosion depending on which way the pendulum swings. Both sets of conditions have been experienced again and again over the past decade or so around the island.

How can we help to reduce these catastrophic impacts? Encouraging family and friends to act immediately is a start. Although we might feel inconsequential as an individual, if we act together change can happen. Even a little change en masse can make a difference.

Experiencing other cultures which don’t have an apparent endless supply of electricity and water as we perceive we do in the West can be enlightening and hopefully a vehicle for change. Neither resource is plentiful in Sri Lanka.

With the erratic nature of the monsoon seasons comes an unpredictable and unstable electricity supply for Sri Lankans since up to 42% of the national grip is supplied by hydropower. This is compounded by landslides in the areas where the hydropower is generated. The island’s grid infrastructure is also inefficient and poorly maintained, which means that power failures (outages) are not uncommon and, in some areas, electricity is in short supply, so please use electricity responsibly while you are staying.

Air-conditioning (a/c) is probably the most energy-hungry consumer of electricity in your accommodation and it is controllable. Many of the hotels have automated key switches for power in bedrooms that switch off or lower the a/c requirement when you are out of the room; if the accommodation doesn’t have this facility, please consider switching off the a/c yourself when leaving the room to save on power. When in the room, a slightly higher temperature than the usual ‘cool’ setting will save even more electricity.

Potable water is becoming a limited resource in many parts of Sri Lanka. Increasing population and tourism as well as more frequent droughts and less predictable and/or protracted rainy seasons all affect water supply, which is exacerbated by the requirements of hydroelectric power plants.

Most foreign visitors drink water from plastic bottles to ensure safe and clean drinking water even though many hotels and guesthouses now have filtered water systems in-house. Plastic has become a global disaster and reducing single-use plastic must be a necessity. Please consider carrying your own reusable water bottle and refilling it from safe drinking water sources on your travels. If accommodation insists on providing plastic water bottles at meal times or in the room, please challenge them about their clean water policy and encourage them to invest in a water filtering system. Single-use plastic must be stopped!

Showering uses about 10 litres of water per minute and rain showers over double this amount. Sri Lanka is a hot and sometimes humid country and a lot of visitors like to shower twice a day, luxuriating for long periods under the cooling deluge. Please consider showering only once a day and for less time in order to conserve the island’s precious water.

If you want to make the biggest individual impact on climate change, follow a vegan diet. Meat production results in extremely high greenhouse gas emissions and, in the UK, we need to reduce our meat intake by 50-75% to help reduce greenhouse emissions. Even reducing your meat intake by half would have enormous consequences for the planet – and your health. Less meat production globally would allow a significant increase in the amount of forests. This would be a boon for biodiversity – and forests also take carbon out of the air. Being vegan in Sri Lanka is easy as dairy products or eggs are not often included in traditional meals. Many Sri Lankans are vegetarian or vegan due to religious principles and therefore the choice is vast and the quality is excellent of non-meat dishes on the island.

Tasty Sri Lankan cuisine is what most visitors want to savour on their travels around the island. Locally sourced and cooked food has a much lower carbon footprint than imported (and expensive) foreign produce. Why eat muesli with apples or oranges for breakfast when egg hoppers with onion sambol and fresh pineapple, papaya and a variety of bananas are on offer locally? The national spirit, arrack, and Sri Lankan gin are perfect as sundowners rather than paying a premium for imported liquors.

The accommodation included in this holiday has sustainability and authenticity at its core:

- Borderlands Eco Lodge is surrounded by mountain peaks and pristine forest. The rustic riverfront tents and cabins overlooking the tumbling torrents of the Kelani River in Kitulgala are all made locally and covered by traditional thatched roofs. The structures are demountable and may be reused or removed at any time so drastically reducing their impact on the local environment.

- Hanthana House is a friendly and welcoming homestay guesthouse near Kandy surrounded by one of the first tea estates established on the island. Your hosts, Pathi and Suba, will introduce you to authentic Sinhalese Buddhist life through chats, cooking and village walks. Hot water for showers is generated by solar-thermal arrays and drinking water is provided by a filtration system.

- Maalu Maalu Resort & Spa was built on the concept of a traditional Sri Lankan fishing village, or ‘Waadiya’, with the simple eco-friendly architecture inspired by the wooden-clad dwellings of a typical fisherman’s hut. The bedrooms and adjoining public areas are designed to seamlessly blend with the white sandy beaches and dazzling blue seas under the tropical skies of the tranquil east coast without disrupting the visual and natural aspects of the local environment.

- Galkadawala Forest Lodge is an open-plan forest lodge built sensitively with its natural surroundings and nestled in ‘jungle’ near a picturesque lake in the Cultural Triangle. Most of the structure is built from recycled or repurposed materials and only a few trees were sacrificed during construction. The design concept echoes the early watch-huts that studded this Dry Zone region, built on trees or stilts by chena farmers to protect their crops from animals. According to Maulie, the owner and in-house manager: “Tourism should ideally, in countries such as Sri Lanka, be a means of renewing abandoned environments which once supported cultural heritage. In these circumstances, the vitality of our value systems combined with the tranquil balance of our lives could be shared with guests who seek our hospitality. It is only then that the experiences they seek for which they travel to distant lands may be truly fulfilled… From the outset, the aim was to transform this barren patch of land to a jungle habitation, creating a haven for guests to enjoy a setting in which Man and Nature lived in harmony with each other – the pastoral scene of the rural peasantry in which animals, birds, reptiles and insects also have their due place.”

- Villa Hundira is a luxury homestay built from scratch on vacant land by the visionary Sri Lankan-Swedish owners, who opened their doors to guests after developing the villa for themselves and raising a family. The villa’s very essence is family, community and authenticity.

Obviously, flying to Sri Lanka and enjoying a private tour of the island by car impacts detrimentally on climate change. However, there are ways of ameliorating some of the impact. Your flight to Sri Lanka is about 80% of the total carbon footprint of your entire holiday and possibly the best alternative to mitigate your flights’ emissions at the present time is to invest in a local community generation project at home. We use petrol- or diesel-engine vehicles in Sri Lanka as a matter of necessity. Currently, there is a poor uptake of electric vehicles (EVs) on the island and the charging infrastructure for EVs is essentially non-existent. We don’t use internal flights for obvious climate action reasons but we do encourage train journeys around the island, particularly through the spectacular Hill Country, along the palm-fringed west coast to Galle and up to seldom-visited Jaffna in the far north.

People

Travel broadens the mind and visiting Sri Lanka is no exception. To see the island through the eyes of a local is a profound and enlightening experience and our Sri Lanka family holiday attempts to do just that. Immersing yourselves in a tea estate community, living with a family at a local homestay, and staying in a rural lodge surrounded by traditional farms and smallholdings will offer you an out-of-the-ordinary and extra-special family experience. You will also contribute directly to the economy through employment opportunities for locals in the island’s rapidly growing community tourism sector, buying local produce and merchandise, staying in local accommodation, and gifting to and investing in the resident population when you can.

Borderlands Eco Lodge champions interactions with the great outdoors by providing professional development and corporate training schemes for local companies and offices. It also arranges and runs school summer camps, junior school programmes and youth leadership expeditions for local education authorities.

AMBA Estate is an organic farm, guesthouse and social enterprise in the Uva Highlands of Sri Lanka. Their goal is to maximise local employment and incomes, while preserving and restoring the natural environment. They work with the local community to produce and export a range of artisanal products, and offer guests the opportunity to relax and recharge in one of the most beautiful spots in Sri Lanka, surrounded by over 50 hectares of mountains, waterfalls, caves, forests and tea fields. For guests who want to spend time with village families learning about local food and handicrafts, help to collect honey and kithul treacle from the forest, explore the farm and learn about organic farming, and try their hand at plucking and rolling their own tea, peeling cinnamon, roasting coffee or making jams and chutneys, a range of hands-on experiences are offered.

Hanthana House is a family homestay on the outskirts of Kandy. Pathi and Suba are wonderful hosts and will show you local walking trails in the Hanthana Hills or teach you how to prepare traditional ‘Rice and Curry’. They are also actively involved in community-based programmes in the local area, particularly through the neighbourhood Buddhist temple and its head monk, Nanda sadhu – such as pre-natal as well as mother and child support initiatives – schemes that Tikalanka contributes to directly through its Forgotten Village Sri Lanka project – please contact us for more details. Pathi and Suba offer extra support to their employees, when necessary, many of whom have worked with them for a long time and are considered family.

Galkadawala Forest Lodge is the inspiration and dedication of its Sri Lankan owner and on-site manager, Maulie. Over many years of development, Maulie has created a very intimate, peaceful and natural place to stay and experience with her local staff. The spaces – including Birders’ Nook and Yogi’s Room – speak for themselves, evoking a sense of quiet observation, contemplation and meditation, exactly the environment Maulie has strived to achieve. And it works! Nature is all around you, Sri Lankan vegetarian food is served at mealtimes, and guests are encouraged to commune with nature as well as other guests while staying at this rustic retreat. With the duality of nature and guest taking centre stage, a real sense of wellbeing pervades every corner of the lodge and you will leave refreshed and reinvigorated.

Villa Hundira is a locally owned and operated home-away-from-home on tranquil Negombo lagoon. Indira, one of the passionate owners, runs an on-going community project, Thimble, which supports local fisher folk through an arts and crafts workshop in-house. Thimble empowers women of nearby fishing villages by encouraging them to create a range of handicrafts, wall hangings, tapestries, cushions and stuffed toys that are flamboyant and distinct in style.

Community is a fundamental tenet of our operations in Sri Lanka. We are fortunate to have a group of expert and passionate Sri Lankan guides with many years’ experience of chaperoning foreign visitors around their wonderful country and showing them the best of the island has to offer. You can be assured of their quality, knowledge and experience since all are trained and licensed by the Sri Lanka Tourism Development Authority. Not only that, they are friendly, caring and a joy to be with! Don’t be shy, relax in their company and you will come away with unique and vivid memories of your holiday that will stay with you for the rest of your life. But don’t take it from us – our very positive feedback from past customers is testament to that fact.