Sri Lanka is really beautiful. I have heard similar claims from people about other places, so let me emphasize: Sri Lanka is really truly jaw-droppingly stupendously amazingly awe-inspiringly beautiful (from now on rtjsaa beautiful).

It is not so much that Sri Lanka is more rtjsaa beautiful than other rtjsaa beautiful places I have seen, such as Victoria Falls or the Bijagos Archipelago. It is more to the point that Sri Lanka is so consistently rtjsaa beautiful.

Throughout the country, from the beaches to the hill country, I don’t think there is a bad view in the entire country. I have to force myself to stop looking when riding a bus because I start getting dizzy. It is easy to understand why Marco Polo claimed Sri Lanka to be the “finest island of its size” or that several people have told me the island is synonymous with Shangri La.

But you don’t have to take my word for it since I finally posted some photos.

There is so much diversity in every aspect of life, so many different kinds of everything:

Ethinicities (Tamil, Sinhalese, Berger, and others)
Religions (Buddhism, Hinduism, Christianity, and Islam)
Greenery, trees, flowers (too many to name even if I knew the names)
Wildlife (elephants, monkeys, funny lizards, chipmunks, geckos, obviously hundreds of others, mosquitos)
Fruits (Already talked about this)
Curries and spices (Every meal is a feast of the senses)

Sometimes when I stop looking to recover from my dizziness, I wonder: how can an island this truly jaw-droppingly stupendously amazingly awe-inspiringly beautiful, this wonderfully diverse, and filled with so many kind people, how can a place like that be so troubled? How can paradise have problems? I know the academic answer, but it just doesn’t seem congruous with my surroundings.

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