Travel Inspirations

“Man cannot discover new oceans unless he has the courage to lose sight of the shore” – Andre Gide

Our ambition is to embed the philosophy of that quote, into our journeys, the best way we can. With our team’s collective experience, we’ve scouted ideal lodgings, each with its own personal impact on the environment and chances for community outreach that pans well beyond the regular tourist lures.

He then goes on to give an account of what is clearly Adam’s peak. “I am unwilling to pass over certain particulars which I omitted when speaking of the island of Zeilan…In this island there is a very high mountain so rocky and precipitous that the ascent to the top is impractical where the tomb of Adam our first parent is supposed to be found…”

From Ceylon of the Early Travellers by H.Hulugalle

The words of Woolf when he arrives in Colombo back in 1904 still resonate true to me today: “There was something extraordinarily real and at the same time unreal in the sights sounds and smells – the whole impact of Colombo, the GOH, and Ceylon in those first hours and days; and this curious mix of intense reality and unreality applied to all my seven years on the island”.

The MUST read Book!

If you are traveling to Sri Lanka and are looking for THE book to read waste no further time and let it be Woolf in Ceylon by Christopher Ondaatje.
The burgher writer decides to leave the comfort of his home in Canada to retrace Leonard's Woolf first years in Ceylon as a British civil servant. A Journey that will take him through Colombo, Jaffna, Kandy and Hambantota with the works of Woolf as companion and guide; during the journey Ondaatje comes to terms with the ghosts of his own past as the adventure unfolds.

The city was flanked on one side by the ocean, and its inhabitants where never very far away from the salty smell of sea air and its cooling breezes. In the middle of the city was the extensive Beira lake, from which tributaries snaked their way through the city, forming smaller lakes at various junctions. The waters of the lake where bordered by foliage of unrivaled beauty, palms of every variety, masses of scarlet flamboyant blossoms, the waving of leaves of plantain trees. The streets were wide and lined on both sides with huge trees that cast their shade over the roads. The most common of these was the Suriya tree, whose profuse blossoms often formed a carpet of primrose yellow over the pavements”

From Cinnamon Gardens by Shyam Selvadurai.

And more Books…and Trees

Reading and traveling yes please. But what to read before heading to Sri Lanka, here is a good start. "Colombo, with its fine port, its midway position between East and West, was one of the great junctions of the shipping world in the 1920's. Yet the city had none of the chaos of masonry, the hustle and bustle that one associated with the other great cities of the East, be they Singapore, Shangai, or Bombay. Instead the principal impression of Colombo was tress and water.