Love Isn’t Blind
I first visited Sri Lanka in 2017 – my first time travelling outside of Europe. With nothing more than a curious mind and a comically large backpack, I spent three weeks in the Hill Country working with a local charity that supported schools, monasteries, and health centres. I discovered the programme through my university and saw it as an exciting opportunity to experience a completely new culture and learn more about the world.
In hindsight, the programme carried many of the troublesome hallmarks of a ‘voluntourism’ organisation – something I’m far more aware of now. But as an optimistic nineteen-year-old, I didn’t know any better.
I still regularly reflect on this brief trip as one of the most eye-opening experiences of my life, not because I had any kind of profound realisation or watershed moment, but rather because it was the first time I had ever embraced the unfamiliar.
The language, the food, the traffic, the infrastructure, the lifestyle – everything about the city of Kandy was completely new to me – and I loved it. So much so that when I was coincidentally offered a job in Sri Lanka five years later, my fond memories and relative familiarity with the place played an important role in my decision to take it.
So when I eventually returned in February 2023, my first port of call was a trip back to the Hill Country, where it all began. I visited some distant friends of friends in their remote bungalow called Jungle Tide, which sits discretely between jungle and tea fields overlooking the beautiful Hanthana Mountain Range. Jerry and Sally began building Jungle Tide in 2004 before permanently relocating to the Hill Country in 2015, just over forty years after Sally and her family had left what was then Ceylon after four generations of tea planting.
Jerry wrote a fantastic book about his experience building the property and how they overcame the many challenges associated with it, while he watched his wife Sally fall back in love with her childhood home. They have a wonderful bungalow, work closely with locals in the community, and treat their land and staff with immense respect.
The brief time I spent there felt like a weekend at my grandparents house, filled with exciting stories, dog walks, hearty meals, and evenings by the fire with a beer in hand.
It was on this trip that I met Ram for the first time. With a stud earring that blindingly reflects the intense Sri Lankan sun and black curly hair inspired by his love for Lionel Richie, he hardly blends into the crowded streets of Kandy.
A single father of three, Ram works predominantly in tourism and spends a lot of time on the road to earn a living for his family – oh, and their dog Fluffy, who never fails to get a mention when asked about life at home. He took me around Kandy that weekend as I reminisced about the city, pointed out its differences, and told stories about my teenage adventures.
Ram became a trusted driver and friend, and we kept in touch throughout the entire time I lived in Colombo. He even accompanied my parents on a road trip when they visited me a year later, and they regularly speak highly of how he took care of them and showed them some of the most beautiful parts of the island. So, when I returned to Kandy in March 2026, there was only one person I was going to call.
We met up over lunch at Sri Balaji, an iconic dosai restaurant in the heart of the city, and an emotional reunion was accompanied by some incredible food. Lots had happened since I last saw Ram, including his daughter’s marriage, which he promptly revealed beautiful photos of with contagious pride and admiration. But as lunch went on, the conversation slowly shifted to the more complicated parts of what should otherwise have been a perfect day.
Ram is Tamil, the largest of the minority ethnic groups in Sri Lanka, and his daughter married a Sinhalese man, whom he described as caring and very good to her. However, sadness appeared in his eyes as he opened up about the difficult relationship he has with her husband’s parents.
He told me how they appear to be disapproving of their daughter marrying a Tamil, yet traditions dictated that she move to her husband’s town to be closer to his family. Even on the wedding day, Ram said that his family members were reluctant to speak with him, and that he feels excluded from her new life because of her in-laws’ attitude towards him as a Tamil.
Sadly, this is not an unusual tale. Ethnic tensions between Tamil and Sinhalese communities have existed throughout Sri Lanka’s complicated history. Sri Lankan Tamils were native to the north of Sri Lanka, in Jaffna and the surrounding region, with strong ties to Tamil Nadu in South East India.
During the British colonial period, the British brought many additional Tamils from India to work on plantations, a large number of whom spoke English, the official language of British Ceylon, and disproportionately occupied highly coveted jobs within the Civil Service. This solidified the existing caste system, as social identities evolved into administrative categories, establishing a rigid hierarchy structure both bureaucratically and socially.
However, upon independence from the British Empire, the Sinhalese majority made efforts to balance the interests of elites from both communities, but eventually introduced stronger policies that imposed Sinhalese interests and suppressed the Tamil community. This manifested in the form of the Sinhala Only Act, which replaced English with Sinhala as the official language of Ceylon, excluding Tamil.
What followed was decades of policies that continued to suppress the Tamil minority, which exacerbated the divide within and between communities, until the eventual outbreak of a full-blown civil war in 1983 when the Liberation Tigers of Tamil (LTTE) – a militant separatist organisation – launched an ambush on the Sri Lankan Armed Forces in the Jaffna Peninsula.
Violence spread throughout the country, including to Kandy, where Sinhalese rioters looted and attacked Tamil-owned businesses and homes across the country in what was known as Black July. Ram watched many people in his community lose their homes, businesses, and possessions during the devastation of Black July, and it’s easy to understand how difficult it must be to truly forgive and forget such traumatic events.
So when Ram’s daughter married into a Sinhalese family that still exhibited many of the oppressive attitudes towards Tamil people – including towards the father of their son’s new wife – happiness was accompanied by a bitter taste, representative of the underlying tensions that still exist as a legacy of a devastating period in Sri Lankan history.
I said farewell to Ram with a lump in my throat. I don’t know when I’ll see him next, and I don’t know how his family life will evolve. But I do know that his resilience and kindness will continue to improve the lives of those around him, as he did mine.
Reservations
I left Kandy the following day with Ram’s story still lingering in my mind. As I travelled deeper into the Hill Country, the legacy of Sri Lanka’s ethnic divisions began to reveal itself in quieter, more subtle ways.
Consecutive villages exist in isolation: stupas and Sinhalese signs are replaced by kovils and Hindu artwork every few kilometres, the only consistencies being that of the road signs – which are legally required to appear in all three languages – and the vibrant green of the tea plantations.
Navigating through the more remote parts of the region, the gleaming smiles and dramatic waves of tea pickers bring a refreshing enthusiasm that isn’t quite replicated in major towns and cities, accompanying the warmth of the midday sun with a welcome that almost makes me forget the sunburn on the back of my neck.
Tea pickers are predominantly Tamil women, who work tirelessly in the midday sun plucking tea leaves by hand, earning very low incomes under poor working conditions. Many of these women are direct descendants of the labourers brought from India during British rule to work on the plantations. Though, even with the expansion and development of the sector, “Hill Country Tamils remain one of the most discriminated-against and economically, socially, and politically marginalised communities in the country”.
The Hill Country remains reliant on the tea industry as the backbone of its local economy, with much of the land dedicated to cultivating, producing, and distributing tea both locally and internationally. Navigating through the vast estates, the evidence of British colonial presence appears in the form of Holyrood, Somerset, Aberdeen, and various other tea factories and estates that bear familiar British names.
These tea estates were historically connected by train to Kandy and Colombo – a railway that still winds through the mountains today. The route was central to the economic and social development of the Central Highlands in the nineteenth and twentieth centuries.
The railway winds its way through vast landscapes, clinging to the hillsides as trains shudder over mountain passes and past picturesque villages, at times making passengers feel like they are standing on the edge of the world. Travelling through this historic region gives a brief insight into the local economy, as the sound of horns and shudders disrupt the peace and serenity of the green pastures.
This has naturally attracted a surge of tourists keen to hang out of the train’s doors and windows as part of a viral photoshoot, much to the displeasure of the ticket collectors, who parade the carriages with videos of tourists falling from the train or hitting their heads on lampposts. Quite an effective early warning system.
What this means in reality, though, is that purchasing tickets in advance with seat reservations is almost impossible, with touts pre-purchasing reservations that can be sold with a hefty markup, and local commuters slowly being crowded out of domestic train routes by tourists willing to pay Western prices for local services.
These are the flaws that often create tension between locals and tourists, and understanding the broader impacts of tourism growth in this region is vital for encouraging a more empathetic and responsible approach to travel.
The Venn Diagram
So, why are these stories linked?
The Hill Country is attracting more visitors than ever before, with many travellers desperate to experience what the region has to offer. Yet, journeys remain fairly one-dimensional and prioritise an oversaturated train route that runs directly to major towns with substantially more tourist infrastructure, omitting some of the more beautiful, lesser-known places in between.
The economic benefits of tourism are thus concentrated in a select few areas, often detached from the communities that have a more pressing need for economic support, and in many cases still divided along ethnic lines. As a result, intra-regional inequality grows, leaving behind many isolated communities that are already economically and socially marginalised.
What I learned over the course of a few years in Sri Lanka is that the scenic train ride through the Hill Country isn’t really the best reflection of the region’s beauty. The landscapes are incredible, and I wouldn’t possibly argue with the scenery on display, but the true beauty of the Hill Country comes through the unique discoveries along the way.
The brief interactions with shopkeepers and their kindness as you pass through their village, the gleaming smiles of local schoolchildren who throw a ball in your direction as you pass the cricket fields, the enthusiastic greetings from the resilient women working in the fields – all set against the backdrop of towering mountains, rolling hills, and beautiful tea plantations. Truly exploring the Hill Country means slowing down and embracing the places in between.
It’s also a far more sustainable form of travel. Rather than overcrowding a seemingly saturated route, getting off the train allows travellers to explore some of the lesser-known areas of the Hill Country. Towns like Haputale, Hatton, and Maskeliya act as gateways to beautiful trails, hidden waterfalls, historic sites of religious significance, and incredible hospitality, offering authentic experiences with far less footfall.
In doing so, tourism revenue is redistributed to places that stand to benefit far more from new injections of cash. Supporting local businesses in these communities – many of which remain economically isolated from the rest of the island due to poor transport links, weak infrastructure, and limited opportunity – is the real economic case for sustainable tourism: directing money to the places where it’s needed most.
I ended my trip through the Hill Country at AMBA Estate, an organic farmstay and social enterprise in Ambadandegama that captures tourism revenue and spends locally to develop some of the poorest areas of the Uva Province.
When I spoke with the owner, Simon, who also has a background in economics and a longing for work with tangible, direct development impact, he described the business as the most effective development project he had ever worked on.
The idea behind it is surprisingly simple: keep tourism money in the local community. Rising incomes, stable employment, reliable value chains, and improvements in overall wellbeing support sustainable practices and the growth of a local economy.
And it’s working. Rather than waiting for the economics to trickle down, direct action has an immediate economic and social impact that continues to compound over time.
Sustainable tourism, hidden gems, authenticity, community empowerment, economic development, these all intersect at the same point: spending locally. This is how underdeveloped regions such as Sri Lanka’s Hill Country truly benefit from the surge in tourism.
Get off the train. Support local businesses. Embrace the places in between.
