Firstly, let me express my regret on not being able to publish as many posts as I would’ve liked to during this year. However, the good news is I’m back!
After the madness of Covid over the past 3 or so years, as things have started to normalise at least to some extent, I decided to do a trip to Sri Lanka mainly to re-unite, albeit temporarily, with my family here (yes I’m still in Sri Lanka as I type this). This is my first international trip outside of Australia since January of 2020 which means I was super excited to once again fly (which I love) as I haven’t got on a plane since I returned from a trip to the USA in January 2020, well before this blog was born.
Sri Lanka has been through some trying circumstances in 2022, which many of you would’ve read about or seen on TV. And while inflation is through the roof (really, it’s quite shocking for someone like me who grew up here to see the prices of what things cost today in the local currency) once you convert those prices to Australian or US Dollars you realise that things actually do cost the same as they did before. It is just that the Sri Lankan rupee has lost a heap of its value over a very short period of time, and while the prices of things are unchanged if you earn in Australian or US dollars, this is a very different story if you are a local earning in Rupees.
Unfortunately, a country in crisis and on the news is not a country tourists usually want to visit, understandably. Pre-Covid, roughly 60% of Sri Lanka’s foreign income came from tourism. After the economic crisis and globally televised protests, it appears many would be tourists have opted to go elsewhere as Covid restrictions slowly begin to ease and travellers come out of their slumber to once again explore the world. While in Colombo, the capital, and as I travelled through the country, I could count the number of tourists I saw on one hand. This is an absolute shame, and here’s why – While it is true that there were protests in the country during the middle of the year, some even turning violent, as I type this, the country is in a period of perfect calm. Throughout my trip, as a visitor, I have never felt unsafe at any point. There are still some shortages of certain things (just as there are shortages of items in many parts of the world at the moment), but there is plenty of fuel, the buses, trains and other forms of transport work as normal, there are still rolling blackouts but these are limited to an hour or two a day at most and will likely go unnoticed by any tourist as most hotels and accommodation would have their own power generators. Inflation is largely an issue for the locals, not tourists, and so will not affect anyone visiting here.
I intend to write a few more posts about my visit to Sri Lanka and travels within the country in the next few days and possibly, weeks. In the meantime, if you were planning to go on holiday and are not yet quite sure where to go, why not visit Sri Lanka? Get in while it’s not too crowded and not too expensive. The sun still shines, the beaches are to die for and Sri Lanka can do with the money, just as you could do with a nice holiday!
haye.sh 