Sri Lanka - Island of Beauty, Culture and Nature

Описание: Sri Lanka stands for colorful diversity in every respect. Those looking for spirituality or Ayurveda will find what they are looking for, as will adventurers and nature lovers. On the teardrop-shaped tropical island in the Indian Ocean, no one has to travel far to discover exotic worlds. This doumentary dives into the everyday life of the islanders.

Stilt fishermen in Sri Lanka are no longer about fish - they earn well as "photo models."
Anura Alwis Wijewickrema, who officially calls himself a fisherman, is one of the most photographed people of Sri Lanka. This is because his way of fishing has become iconic for the island: He climbs on stilts stuck in the seabed. On these he then perches persistently, although hardly anything bites. Anura is not hunting for fish, but for tourists. And his customers don't want seafood, but photos or videos. For a long time now, posing has been much more lucrative for the stilt fishermen than actually catching anything like their ancestors once did.

A colorful beach business with a serious background: Since her son-in-law drowned in the devastating tsunami of 2004, Anulawathie has been renting out swimming tires on Polhena Beach - mainly to locals, many of whom are still non-swimmers.

On Polhena Beach, Anulawathie runs a small swimming tire business: she offers car inner tubes for adults and tuk-tuk inner tubes for children. All brightly painted, most of them already frequently patched, convenient that her sister owns the local tire patching business. There is a serious background behind the floating tires: they have been around since the devastating 2004 tsunami, which also hit Sri Lanka hard. Anulawathie's son-in-law also drowned at that time, and many locals still cannot swim today.

Sri Lanka was called Ceylon until 1972: The tea of the same name has made the island famous; particularly valuable varieties such as "white tea" are cut from the bushes on the plantations with golden scissors. © NDR/nonfictionplanet/Dragomir Radosavljević
Particularly valuable varieties such as "white tea" are harvested from the bushes on the plantations with golden shears.
Herman Gunaratne took care of his tea plants 50 years ago, when Sri Lanka was still officially called Ceylon. Different varieties grow on his plantation by the sea. Only four selected collectors are allowed to harvest the exclusive white tea. Each tea leaf is individually cut from the bush with gloves and golden scissors.

A Queen of the Sea on rails: Tens of thousands of commuters from the capital Colombo travel daily on the Queen of the Sea rail line.

Things are considerably more shirt-sleeved on the packed trains of the Queen of the Sea line. Tens of thousands of commuters are on the move on the Queen of the Sea line. Among them is railroad musician Saman Fernando with his electric piano, who has been dreaming of a big breakthrough for years and at the end of the day adds up the few rupees that the train passengers have thrown into his basket.

As tedious as everyday life on the tropical island may sometimes be, the religious festivals in Sri Lanka, the peraheras, are large and colorful. One of the most famous is the Navam Maha Perahera, held annually on the full moon day of the Sinhala month of Navam, which corresponds to February. An impressive procession then starts from the Gangaramaya temple in the capital Colombo, with even elephants marching along. For Saman Lokumallage and his young dance students it is a special occasion to perform their devil dances. The greatest difficulty is to elegantly avoid the pachyderms' droppings during the complicated movements.