We’re all going on a summer holiday

So, on my 53^rd birthday we took a $500 Air Asia X flight to Colombo! Itinerary which has proved to be incredible…..

• 2 days Galle Face hotel (Episode 3 recommendation)
• 1 day Galle Fort
• 3 days Mirissa beach
• 6 hr train trip from Ella to Kandy
• 2-day wedding in Kandy.
• I day personalised tour of 800 cow dairy farm at 2,500m altitude and Tea Plantation care of ex Tasmanian Dairy manager I worked with cousin’s brother…..

Now the semi-retired dude below might be happy enough with $1/hr to slingshot birds at the Galle Face hotel, but the uber driver with 3 kids on $2,000 rupees/day ($11) and no holidays or super isn’t as comfortable as his Australian counterpart. Happy enough though, loved cricket and the haka…..

Some interesting facts about Sri Lanka

• 65,000 square km (68,000 Tasmania)
• 22 million people (570,000 Tasmania)
• 58% renewable Electricity (34% AU)
• 27% of population work in agriculture (1% Australia)
• 3 million tonnes of rice produced by 2 million farmers.
• 300,000 tonnes of tea produced by 1 million farmers.
• 2 million Tuk tuks (0 AU).
• Carbon footprint 1t/person (15t AU)
• $1/hour minimum wage ($24 AU)

 The dairy farm I visited was impressive, they imported 20 truck loads of mainly hand cut maize up a goat track type driveway every day and endure 7m of rainfall a year. Fergus the half mad (but very good) Irish manager employed 47 people to milk 800 cows, and receives 230 rupees (AU$1.30)/litre for his milk. At NZ$400,000 my wage bill is similar for 5 people and I get AU70c/litre…..but if we look with a global lense, is his system more sustainable supporting 9x the people?

I was interested to see how 22 million people fitted onto an island the size of Tasmania, bearing in mind they are both half rain forest…..it’s an odd sort of organised chaos with 2 out of 3 vehicles being the mighty Tuk tuk, it would be an interesting study to compare the lifetime emissions of a $5,000 Tuk tuk to a $70,000 Tesla, the Tuk tuk doing 200km on 10l of gas and likely lasting 10 years or more…..will we get 10 years out of a Tesla?

The country is still close to bankrupt, the tell-tale run-down infrastructure due to successive corrupt governments. Interestingly what helped tip them into the last financial crisis 2 years ago, that the IMF has bailed them out of, was the government in their wisdom banned the use of chemical fertilisers and pesticides…..this almost halved the rice crop which broke a lot of the 2 million farmers with their small plots, and severely depleted the countries food supplies, fortunately they reversed this idiocrasy for the next season…..another example of UN Sustainability goals influencing government policy with no logic.

Again, it’s fascinating that its effectively the same size as Tasmania with 40 times as many people…..I saw less homeless drunks than I see on Fitzroy St in St Kilda…..and is it not a wonderful sustainability story that they have over 5 million people working in agriculture?! This is one of the countries where people live on less than $7/day, fortunately its hot and rains all year, hence crops grow and there is no waste of fuel on heating…..they don’t know what offsetting emissions means, and don’t need to at 1t/person.

There is no ‘nanny state’ bulls*#t socialist policies…..you work or your hungry…..

In conclusion, Sri Lanka is amazing…..however it’s a slightly guilty holiday when you can pay a Tuk tuk driver AU$10 to drive you around all day, or an Uber AU$50 for a 3-hour drive. Imagine bringing up a family earning $1/hour…..I love the people, but half have a cynical jealousy of us ‘gringos’ (kinda fair enough) and half are grateful we are spending our dough there.

If you get invited to a Sri Lankan Buddhist wedding…..GO!