Sri Lanka: Temples, Spirituality, and Wellness Travel

One Planet Journey’s Greta Corso is on a journey of wellness and spirituality. Follow her across Sri Lanka as she takes you to famous and sacred temples. The country offers an unexpected transformative experience, where the inherent kindness of the Sri Lankan culture makes itself felt from the moment you arrive. Everyday interactions and quiet rituals reveal a culture rich in meaning and mindfulness.

Sri Lanka – a land of kindness

Sri Lanka is a small island country located southeast of India that has maintained deep rooted values and traditions. This is despite a legacy of over five hundred years of foreign intervention and colonial rule.

The choice to visit usually hinges on the hope of finding beautiful waves to surf or some adventurous excursion in the middle of the jungle. Things that certainly nourish your heart, both of which you can find in Sri Lanka. Yet what you don’t expect is a journey within a journey. While you visit ancient places, climb mountains, and dive into the ocean, waves of kindness and spirituality washes over you. The experience makes you return home somewhat changed. Perhaps more aware, and like me, full of new questions and spaces in my soul to fill.

You will experience real personal growth by looking at the details of your surroundings. The man outside the temple asks if you want to touch the flowers that he brings as a gift to the monks, so they give you good karma, too. According to the saying of Buddha, ‘Thousands of candles can be lit by a single candle, without it being affected. Happiness does not diminish when it is shared’. 

Locals bring children to tourists, putting their English to the test, helping them improve at school. There’s the woman who explains how the ritual of lighting the candle in front of the temple of Kandy works, and giving you hers. The man who wishes you a good life with a smile. All without anyone ever asking for anything in return, as the Buddhist belief, is that you must be kind in this life to hope for improvement in the next. Grow from kindness.

Keep an open mind 

I welcome you to a meaningful journey in Sri Lanka. Deep travel beyond the hotspots and checklists. Immerse yourself in the spiritual culture of this country. Allow the magic of ancient traditions and philosophies of karma and the middle way to captivate you. Get to know the locals and learn what respect for nature, family, and physical and mental well-being means to them. Give yourself the opportunity to experience something new, a wellness journey where you discover fresh ways of thinking. 

After a trip like this, you won’t return home indoctrinated or changed in some mystic way. Buddhist philosophy coexists peacefully with any religious beliefs you may have. Instead, visiting Sri Lanka will show how to remain yourself while welcoming different dynamics. In the end, adopting a few good habits and seeking kindness is what we all desperately need.

Get organised for your Sri Lankan Adventure

The best time to visit Sri Lanka is from December until about May. I arrived in October, in the middle of the low-season, which coincides with the seasonal rains. No worries though, the rain gives a rare sacredness to the places you visit. It allows you to think about what you’ve seen, visited, or heard. It often breaks up your days and teaches you to recalculate your plans on the go.

The frequent rain forces you to walk slowly, but in doing so, you soak up your surroundings and take in the vibrant details. Of course, the rain can be a nuisance, especially when you’re in the forest and you risk getting leeches in your socks. But the rains did not ruin any part of my trip, primarily because it only came down for a few hours in the evening. 

Once you arrive in Colombo, your adventure begins. It’s easy to book guest houses on the same day. However, in a place full of culture and spirituality, I recommend finding locals who can guide you on your journey. These local guides are helpful, as Sri Lanka is a country with plenty of places to visit, often separated by long distances. In addition to a driver, you might consider renting a car or a tuk-tuk, or using well-functioning buses.

You will soon discover kindness, spirituality and, above all, respect, especially around the many temples of Sri Lanka, a sign of the large portion of people who practise Buddhism.

Things to do in Sri Lanka

Your itinerary should include a stop at the Pinnawala Elephant Orphanage, where you see rehabilitated elephants, formerly kept in captivity, but now offered a better life in semi-freedom. Ghandi once said that you can judge the greatness of a nation based on how it treats its animals. Here you have the first taste of Sinhalese culture and its reverence of animals. Those who take care of an elephant are called Guardians. Not master, trainer, or tamer, because it is a sacred animal. This is evident in the way Guardians accompany elephants to the river and how they talk to them.

This kindness extends to other creatures as well. For example, while driving in cars we never honk, not even at dogs stopped in the middle of the road. The intention is to avoid scaring them or the other animals in the jungle. Every road, even the paved type, runs along the jungle for several kilometres and the Sinhalese know that the strange ones are them, not the animals. As such, you have to be careful when walking these roads at night, because one of the jungle’s inhabitants could walk next to you. Or you might find an elephant crossing silently in front of you.

Like most countries that practice Buddhism, it’s common with plant-based dishes. Don’t be afraid to stop at the street food stalls lining numerous city streets. They feature steel counters with a tent on top, often run by local women. Each lists her specialities, at most 2 to 3 typical dishes per stall, with many locals stopping to have lunch there.

Body and Nature 

Should you reach the sea, I recommend the town of Mirissa. Relax on paradise like beaches, drink from Sri Lankan coconuts, surf the gentle waves and eat lots of Sri Lankan-style curry rice. It’s also possible to visit Ayurveda medicine centres to reconcile your spirit and body. Based on your medical history, Ayurvedic doctors will advise you on specific treatments to help you feel more regenerated. Usually with a combination of diet, exercise, and herbal products. The experience allows me to savour a new culture with medicinal practices different from my own, linked to history and the soul.

Visit the many waterfalls in the mysterious town of Ella that captivate with the air of a lost city. There’s the tea plantations, Adam’s Peak with unforgettable sunrises at the summit, and the famous 200 metre high Sigiriya rock column. The latter is a challenging excursion, with many steps to climb, including some exposed sections that might be dangerous for those suffering from vertigo. But the view from the top is worth all the effort, as is the intriguing story behind it. It’s about a king who takes refuge on a mountain removing any possibility of being reached by those below.

Finally, time to immerse ourselves in the wonder of ancient and modern Sri Lanka temples, specifically in Anuradhapura, Mihintale, Polonnaruwa and Kandy.

Spirituality in Sri Lankan temples: Buddhism and Kindness Culture

In the temples of Sri Lanka you can breathe in the kindness, wellness, and spirituality that surround the places and people of this country. 

When visiting temples, you do it barefoot. First, I started taking off my shoes right at the entrance. Then, after some time, I began leaving them in the car. Convenient, but always annoyed at dipping my toes in the mud. But, in the end, you won’t even wear them in the morning. For me, keeping my feet in contact with the earth felt intoxicating, like energy transmitted to you. Back home, I couldn’t do without it.

You will want to visit the Dambulla Cave Temple, a monastery built inside a complex of five caves in a mountain in central Sri Lanka. The monks chose the site because they needed silence, to be at one with nature and return to their origins, and, of course, to meditate. The population feeds and takes care of the monks, seen as custodians of ancient knowledge and as spiritual guides. 

After, I headed straight to Kandy with its modern temple and then Polonnaruwa and its ruins. And stupas everywhere. At these Buddhist mound-shaped burial shrines, there is a ritual where you circle clockwise. Only those who are experiencing mourning and are there in honour of a person who has passed away can go around the opposite of the meaning of life. Mourners walk barefoot with the rest of the locals who are there on pilgrimage. 

Community in the temples of Sri Lanka 

It’s possible to bring gifts to the temples and ask for a blessing from a monk. He will tie a white thread bracelet to your wrist, designed to protect you. Or you perform rituals with the locals around a sacred tree, or small gestures such as pouring water into the plants of the temple. In fact, the Sinhalese see donating water, which they consider precious and the only true source of life, as the noblest and kindest gesture that exists.

I strongly recommend the beautiful sites of Anuradhapura (a World Heritage site), full of electrifying energy and the famous Mihintale. It’s a spiritual place of great reverence, the birthplace of the Buddhist culture of Sri Lanka. Here you will see the big white Buddha, immersed in the jungle and eventually you reach the point where the storied deer showed itself (a symbol of Buddha’s teachings and the act of receiving them). It is difficult to describe. You have to go there to understand the emotions that such a place transmits. What I can tell you, however, is what I saw. People holding bricks, carrying them to the top. 

At first I thought it represented punishment, to atone for sins, but no. There, in Mihintale, people were building another temple, a new one for the incoming monks. Reaching Mihintale is not easy. You must climb barefoot for several stone steps, mixed grass, and mud, with great effort. Visitors took one or two bricks each, children, old people, and women as well, carrying them to the top. All to reduce the number of trips the bricklayers would have to make up and down the mountain. Dividing the work among the faithful, between people, as a community. It left me speechless.

Inspiration from Sri Lanka

Embrace the warmth of kind people. Perhaps it will open a new door inside you, made up of the search for answers within yourself. 

In this increasingly technological and avant-garde world, walk barefoot, cuddle puppies on the street. Let a stray dog accompany you on your journey, honour a tree and nature, and breathe in history and ancient elements. Because the old streets have in them the energy of all the lives that have passed through them. Lastly, chat with a monk, listen to his way of seeing things, embrace wellness and take some home with you.

Have you visited temples in Sri Lanka? How did you find the experience? Let us know in the comments. Subscribe to our newsletter and benefit from travel guides, sustainable tourism and luxury travel tips, insightful interviews, and inspirational places to visit. One Planet Journey – The World’s First Deep Travel Magazine.