craftrevival.org (follow the Sri Lanka link under the “InCH” tab) has copious information on all the island’s traditional arts and crafts.Sri Lankan craftsmanship has a long and vibrant history, and a visit to any museum will turn up objects testifying to the skill of the island’s earlier artisans, who have for centuries been producing exquisitely manufactured objects in a wide variety of media, ranging from lacework and ola-leaf manuscripts to carvings in ivory and wood and elaborate metalwork and batiks.
The quality of local craftsmanship declined following the mass influx of package tourists in the 1970s and 1980s, as local artisans began increasingly to churn out stereotypical cut-price crafts and souvenirs. Fortunately, standards have experienced something of a revival over recent years. You’ll still find plenty of tourist tat – sloppily painted wooden elephants, cheesy kolam masks, ugly batiks and so on – but there’s also a growing selection of more original and upmarket crafts available. These often show the influence of the island’s leading contemporary designers such as batik artist Ena de Silva and Barbara Sansoni, founder of Barefoot, whose vibrantly coloured textiles have become almost the trademark signature of modern Sri Lankan style. The superb website craftrevival.org (follow the Sri Lanka link under the “InCH” tab) has copious information on all the island’s traditional arts and crafts.
All larger shops have fixed, marked prices, although if you’re making a major purchase or buying several items, a polite request for a “special price” or “small discount” might knock a few rupees off, especially for gems or jewellery. The smaller and more informal the outlet, the more scope for bargaining there’s likely to be – if you’re, say, buying a sarong from an itinerant hawker on the beach, you can haggle to your heart’s content.
Finally, there are a couple of things you shouldn’t buy. Remember that buying coral or shells (or any other marine product) contributes directly to the destruction of the island’s fragile ocean environment; it’s also illegal, and you’re likely to end up paying a heavy fine if you try to take coral out of the country. Note that it’s also illegal to export antiques (classified as anything over fifty years old) without a licence.
The most characteristic Sri Lankan souvenirs are brightly painted masks, originally designed to be worn during kolam dances or exorcism ceremonies and now found for sale wherever there are tourists. Masks vary in size from the tiny to the huge; most popular are those depicting the pop-eyed Gara Yaka or the bird demon Gurulu Raksha, though there are an increasing number of other designs available. Some masks are artificially but attractively aged to resemble antiques – a lot easier on the eye than the lurid colours in which many are painted. The centre of mask production is Ambalangoda, where there are a number of large shops selling a wide range of designs, some of heirloom quality.
Second in popularity are elephant carvings. These range from garish little wooden creatures painted in bright polka-dot patterns to the elegant stone carvings sold at places like Paradise Road in Colombo. Batik, an art introduced by the Dutch from Indonesia, is also widespread. Batik designs are often stereotypical (the Sigiriya Damsels and naff beach scenes are ubiquitous), though a few places such as Jayamali Batiks in Kandy produce more unusual and interesting work.
A number of other traditional crafts continue around the island with a little help from the tourist trade. Metalwork has long been produced in the Kandy area, and intricately embossed metal objects such as dishes, trays, candlesticks and other objects can be found in all the island’s handicraft emporia, though they’re rather fussy for most foreign tastes. Leatherwork can also be good, and you’ll find a range of hats, bags, boots and footrests (the shops at Pinnewala Elephant Orphanage have a particularly good selection). Lacquerware, a speciality of the Matale area, can also sometimes be found, along with Kandyan-style drums and, occasionally, carrom boards. Wooden models of tuktuks and other vehicles (most commonly found in Negombo) are another local speciality and make good souvenirs or children’s toys, while you’ll probably also see example of the ingenious local puzzle boxes – impossible to open until you’ve been shown how.
Wood or stone Buddha carvings of varying standards are common. For something a bit more unusual, consider the brightly coloured posters or strip-pictures of Buddhist and Hindu deities which adorn tuktuks and buses across Sri Lanka and are sold by pavement hawkers and stationers’ shops in larger towns and make a cheap and characterful souvenir. A visit to Kataragama or a trawl along St Anthony’s Mawatha in Colombo will uncover an entertaining assortment of other religious kitsch, from bleeding Catholic saints to illuminated Ganesh clocks.
Most top-quality Ceylon tea is exported, but there’s still plenty on sale that is likely to satisfy all but the most dedicated tea fancier. The best (and cheapest) place to buy tea is in a local supermarket; Cargills supermarkets islandwide usually have a good selection. The main local retailers are Dilmah (dilmahtea.com) and Mlesna (mlesnateas.com), whose teas can also be found in most supermarkets and who also run a number of dedicated tea shops in Colombo, Kandy and elsewhere, although these concentrate on more touristy offerings including boxed tea sets, flavoured teas and the like. For a real taste of Sri Lanka, look for unblended (“single estate”) high-grown teas – for sale at source in tea factories (and sometimes in supermarkets and at specialist tea shops) and a far cry from the heavily mixed and homogenized teabags that pass muster in Europe and the US. You’ll also find a wide range of flavoured teas made with a huge variety of ingredients, from standard offerings like lemon, orange, mint and vanilla to the more unusual banana, rum, kiwi fruit or pineapple.
Sri Lanka’s spice gardens, mostly concentrated around Kandy and Matale, pull in loads of visitors on organized tours and sell packets of spices, often at outrageously inflated prices. You’ll find identical stuff in local shops and supermarkets at a fraction of the price.
Sri Lanka has been famous for its precious stones since antiquity, and gems and jewellery remain important to the national economy even today. This is nowhere more obvious than at the gem-mining centre of Ratnapura. All foreign visitors to the town will be offered stones to buy, but unless you’re an expert gemologist there’s a chance that you’ll end up with an expensive piece of coloured glass. Ratnapura apart, you’ll find gem and jewellery shops all over the island – the major concentrations are in Negombo, Galle and Colombo. These include large chains, such as Zam Gems (zamgems.com) and Sifani (sifani.com), and smaller local outfits. If you are going to buy, it’s worth doing some homework before you arrive so you can compare prices with those back home. You can get gems tested for authenticity in Colombo.
For silver and, especially, gold jewellery, try Sea Street in Colombo’s Pettah district, which is lined with shops. These see few tourists, so prices are reasonable, although the flouncy designs on offer aren’t to everyone’s taste.
Sri Lanka is a bit of a disappointment when it comes to clothes, and doesn’t boast the gorgeous fabrics and nimble-fingered tailors of, say, India and Thailand. That said, the island is a major garment-manufacturing centre for overseas companies, and there are lots of good-quality Western-style clothes knocking around at bargain prices, as well as some good local label. In Colombo, places to try include Odel and Cotton Collection. Colourful but flimsy beachwear is flogged by shops and hawkers at all the major west-coast resorts – it’s cheap and cheerful, but don’t expect it to last much longer than your holiday. Most Sri Lankan women now dress Western-style in skirts and blouses, but you can still find a few shops in Colombo and elsewhere selling beautiful saris and shalwar kameez (pyjama suits).
CARROM
A kind of hybrid of pool, marbles and draughts (checkers), carrom is played throughout Sri Lanka. The game’s origins are obscure: some say that it was invented by the maharajas of India, although many Indians claim that it was actually introduced by the British, while Burma, Egypt and Ethiopia are also touted as possible sources.
The game is played using a square wooden board with a pocket at each corner; the aim is to flick all your pieces (which are very similar to draughtsmen) into one of the pockets, using the heavier “striker” piece. Carrom can be played by either four or (more usually) two people. If you get hooked, you may consider a carrom board as an unusual, if bulky, souvenir.