BACK ΤΟ Sri Lanka

The past few years have not been easy on this alluring South Asian island. But on a return visit, Prasad Ramamurthy finds a place-and a people-on the upswing.

- Prasad Ramamurthy

LEAVES RUSTLED in the tall trees overhead, and I felt a cool breeze on my skin. I could hear the gurgle of a stream in the distance, and the sounds of chanting. I was in the tropical woodland surrounding a centuries-old Buddhist monastery, in Matara, Sri Lanka. Ramya Jirasinghe, a mindfulness coach and former Buddhist nun, was walking me through a one-on-one meditation session. At her suggestion, I submitted to the sensory experiences around me "without judgment," listening to sounds without chasing them in thought. Slowly, the tension in my shoulders eased. My mind swirled with images of all that I had experienced in the previous week. As instructed, I let them flow freely.

I was at the end of a five-day journey that had begun in the UNESCO World Heritage site of Galle Fort, in southwestern Sri Lanka, and taken me across the southern tip of the island to the leopard reserve of Yala National Park. In between I had taken in the dramatic coastline of Weligama and had stopped for some beach time in Hiriketiya. Sri Lanka is a country I'm particularly fond of, so when I was asked to revisit to report this story, I seized the opportunity. Yes, I was dying to go back, but I'd had another motive for coming: I wanted to see if the island nation was ready to welcome international visitors again.

In 2022, Sri Lanka's economic crisis made headlines around the world and resulted in an abrupt change of government. Tourism, already battered by COVID and a 2019 terror attack, took another severe hit. (According to the Sri Lanka Tourism Development Authority, visitor revenue slid from a peak of $4.4 billion in 2018 to just $507 million in 2021.) Sustainable tourism companies, which use visitor dollars to support local communities, had been particularly affected. To organize my visit, I turned to Ayu in the Wild, a Sri Lankan-owned sustainable tour operator that donates around 3 percent of its annual revenue to social and ecological causes.