Goin' Sri Lankan !

In October I was given an opportunity to do something I haven't been doing (at least not in such a big extent ;) for quite some time before. As a part of a close co-operation with a well renowned and far seeing company from Slovenia, I traveled all the way to the far East to take over the co-ordiantion of a new partner company and help them in the designing process of a new line of high quality technical & mountaineering wear.

Sri Lanka was a term I knew from the school-books and some geographical documentaries. I was also aware of some huge tsunami damage and casualty-count
(the locals say it was higher then 40.000?!!) that resulted from a disastrous tsunami in 2002. But it wasn't until I started surfing through the internet portals that I also found out that the whole country was caught in a serious military situation and the risks of traveling over there were pretty big. "Strongly in-advisable" was the only information I got from any of them. I went anyway.

Soon after flying into Colombo (the capital-city) things really started to kick off. For the majority of the first week I was absolutely flooded with work and co-ordination between two major companies - all interesting and ingenuitive every step of the way.







Besides that 'project' I was caught into a new culture (mostly buddhist, partly hinduist and slightly catholic as well) with a whole different life standard than you could find in any of the western parts of the world.

Luckily I was able to start traveling around pretty soon. The elephant orphanage at Pinnawala was one of the first on my list.









The ainchent palace of Sigiriya following soon after was one of the highlights, as the royal gardens of the emperor kept me wondering and enthusastic until well after sundown...



...and things only started to roll-on from there. Seeing all of the mesmerising Buddhist 'dagobas' and Hinduist temples along the way...


...all of the rich, 'english' tea-estates
in the central part...


...and to top it of (surely ;), try to do some stream-line surfing along one of the most beautiful beaches I have ever seen.











And though the whole area around Galle and the south has been pretty seriously damaged during the last tsunami... and the ongoing rivalries and terrorist attacks between the Sinhalese and the Tamil minorities keep lasting and prolonging (?!!) themselves - the people fortunately seem to have a strong will to live on and rebuild their natural gems & potentials.






It was one BIG experience for me, definately. A time to do some reflecting on the past few months of my life as well as a chance to open up and accept some new ideas and concepts that might have seemed a bit un-natural at first.



And though I came home a bit tired, I came home with a wide smile on my face - plus a collection of high quality clothing that will be serving their users technical needs for long periods of time.Untill next time to the 'pearl of the Orient'. Ayubowan Sri Lanka!