Travelling in Sri Lanka goes more easily when the person beside you can answer questions in Japanese. This is a private Sri Lankan guide, fluent in Japanese, who accompanies you from place to place and explains what you are looking at — the carving on a temple wall, the layers of a ruined city, the reason a particular tree stands fenced and garlanded. Where the people around you are speaking Sinhala or Tamil, your guide translates for you.
Theravada practice, and a moment the two countries share
Visitors from Japan often arrive with some familiarity with Buddhism and then find that Sri Lankan Buddhism looks unfamiliar. The island follows the Theravada tradition, older in form than the Mahayana schools of Japan, and much of the daily practice differs from what you may know at home: white clothing worn for a temple visit, the evening puja with its drumming and offerings of flowers, and the veneration of the Tooth Relic in Kandy. Having this explained in Japanese, as it happens in front of you, is the difference between watching and understanding. There is also a moment the two countries share, and one many Sri Lankans still mention: at the San Francisco Peace Conference of 1951, Ceylon's delegate J. R. Jayewardene waived reparations from Japan, quoting the Buddha's teaching that hatred ceases not by hatred but by love.
What your guide does for you
- Explains a site as you walk through it — Sigiriya, Anuradhapura, Polonnaruwa or a small village temple — so the stones and paintings carry a story.
- Translates for you with local people: a stallholder in a market, a monk at a shrine, a farmer who stops to talk.
- Tells you the etiquette before you step inside — shoes and hats removed, shoulders and knees covered, white clothing where it is expected, how an offering is made, where photographs are not welcome.
- Explains dishes, spice levels and unfamiliar fruit, and asks on your behalf for what you would like.
- Answers the practical questions that come up along the way, from what a roadside sign says to why the day is a poya holiday.
Book the guide for as many days as your trip needs, from a single day to four weeks, choosing the number of days when you book. Tell Lakpura your itinerary and what you hope to see, so the guide can be matched to that route.
