A Sustainable Slow Luxury Brand, Twenty Years in The Making
© Scott M Salt Photography
What we saw in front of us was a rock pool glistening with crystal-clear waters and not a soul in sight.
This was a different rock pool to the one we had immersed-in the day before, when giggling local kids had shown us their secret bath, through a secret village road. We waded in, delighted to make it our secret too. Could it be that today, we had the source of Heen ganga (ganga means river, in Sinhalese) entirely to ourselves?
A Once-In-A-Lifetime Look into The Island, The People, The Wild.
Our brand of sustainable slow luxury has been twenty years in the making.
The adventures to the source of Heen ganga was one of our earliest forays - long before digital cameras and camera phones could document every rocky stream and tangled vine we forged through. Horathala, the lone survivor of the rural hamlet we had stumbled upon midway through our jungle trek through Kivula Wadiya had promised something pristine where the forest ends, and the rock escarpment begins. An elephant or two may cross our paths, he said; none did, but we smelt their presence.
Somewhere in 2000 or thereabout, Dunvila Cottage, Sunela Jayawardene’s virtually zero carbon escape was our refuge for many nights while we explored far-flung places like Kivula Wadiya. Until Covid-19 stopped our Saturday morning Good Market strolls in Colombo, each Saturday, we met Sunela’s husband Karu to purchase jars of delicious Dunvila Jungle Bees Honey and to chat about all things Sri Lanka, then and now.
Traveling connected us with disconnected places. In some years we met village headman who today, introduce our guests to village artisans and rural women entrepreneurs. Other years we came across fabulous wildlife guides – sons of the soil born and bred around national parks who today delight our guests with their innate skill to interpret the wild. Architects introduced us to Poets. Poets introduced us to musicians. A school buddy is revamping a heritage hotel and somewhere in 2012, we heard the babble of children playing cricket and a bowler, bowling with something strange - a deflated football. The wickets were the stumps of a fallen tree. The kids in this village are today, part of our Classrooms in the Wild community outreach initiative.
When we first explored Minneriya and watched in silent awe as wave upon wave of moms and gentle baby elephants, aggressive bulls and matriarchal herds came out of the forests in their hundreds, Minneriya was not even designated as a National Park. The years passed, the ‘Gathering’ gained global fame and we watched in horror as the herds dispersed into people’s terrain and jeeps took over the National Park. In 2019, Ayu in the Wild started coordinating a collaboration between a local University, an innovations expert, and a long-time advocate of elephant conservation; to work on a prototype to prevent elephants colliding with trains.
These are the threads of connections that define our holidays to Sri Lanka.
A Sustainable Impact Through Low Footfall Tourism
“ Travel is a luxury – but it is also an investment in the wider world, in communities and ecosystems outside our own. When conducted with conscience, it can, like all business, become a transformative force for good.”" - says Juliet Kinsman quoting Steven Overman, author of The Conscience Economy, in her delightfully inspiring feature on Conde Nast Traveller of how Coronavirus has changed the travel industry.
© Scott M Salt Photography
In 2012, when we launched Ayu in the Wild Holidays to curate adventures that connect travelers to life (Ayu, means ‘life’ in Sanskrit) on the island, intuitively, each itinerary was curated around the heritage of the island, her people and the wild - the ‘Sustainability Trilogy’.
Aware that travel can bring enormous benefits to Sri Lanka but over-tourism was destroying the heritage of an island, Ayu in the Wild intentionally steered away from bus tours and from large hotel chains.
A less-is-more approach has always been our ethos and will be more relevant especially now, in a post-coronavirus world as travelers seek amazing once-in-a-lifetime adventures that are authentic, meaningful, uncrowded, and safe.
We have always been drawn to eco-luxury long before the word was even coined. It’s not about compromising on comforts. Our itineraries include the slow life in cosy villas and intimate boutique hotels. Minimalist but elegant escapes that respect the island’s vernacular design-heritage. Hotels that are guided by the environment are everywhere in Sri Lanka and are beautiful examples of exquisite comforts, perfect luxury in an unostentatious way. We actively engage with hotels that contribute to protect our pristine environment and create circular economies within their local communities.
The Sustainable Travel Sri Lanka Collective
Sri Lanka’s visionary collection of ethical ventures and travel innovators firmly committed to the Sustainability Trilogy through their vision to sustain local economies across Sri Lanka by protecting the island, the people and the wild.
The intention of the Sustainable Travel Sri Lanka Collective collaborated by Ayu in the Wild is to encourage a greater paradigm shift in Sri Lanka tourism where the commitment of each member to make a responsible impact on the island, the people and the wild will create a lasting circular economy.
Lockdown was the perfect time to sift through the grainy low-light film photography of our remote adventures over the last two decades. Back then, it was easy to have nature to ourselves.
In early January 2020, we published Ayu in the Wild’s brand of Low Carbon Footprint Sri Lanka Holidays and sought to highlight that sustainable travel can no longer be a tagline but be at the core of an itinerary. How rewilding can make a sustainable impact on people and this beautiful little biodiversity hot spot in Asia. It was a time when bushfires had ravaged wildlife in Australia and the Amazon Rainforests had experienced one of its worst wildfire seasons. Little did we know that nature was about to force our hands and make the whole world stop.
When international travel resumes it will serve us well to remember that #NatureNeverStops. It’s upto all of us to have the courage to say yes to conscious travel and low foot-fall tourism on the other side of the Covid-19 world.
Ayu in the Wild Holidays are specialists in curating sustainable slow travel holidays to Sri Lanka using the knowledge of the widely traveled Sri Lanka owners.