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Safari Sto Gran Tour

An elderly Sri Lankan man

An Incredible Story in Sri Lanka


Years ago, while traveling along one of the most beautiful train routes in Sri Lanka, I met a man in a village who asked me to take a photo of him with his grandson. There aren’t many tourists around here, and having a photo taken is quite a rare event. Hoping to receive a printed copy of that photo, he wrote his address on a little piece of paper. I made a promise, but I didn’t keep it.

Five years passed, and I returned to Sri Lanka. This time, besides filming documentaries for Kilimangiaro and working on a charity project, I also wanted to make up for an old promise.

After a week of traveling and once I had reached the mountains, by asking around a bit, I managed to find the village that was still written on that old piece of paper I had kept all that time.
It wasn’t difficult: everyone in the village knows each other! But the man wasn’t there—he had gone to the nearby town to run some errands. They called him, and in the meantime, the rest of the family and I waited.
His grandson was there with us—the same grandson from the photo—and that already meant something.
After a while, a figure appeared on the dusty little road, completely out of breath. He was running. In his flip-flops and his sort of sarong. He seemed emotional.
It was him, I recognized him, and he recognized me.

We looked at each other—it was clear he was moved, and seeing him left me speechless and breathless too. He gave me two playful slaps, kissed me, and wouldn’t stop holding my hand. A 70-year-old grandfather whose happiness needed no elaborate explanation. We hung the photo in his bedroom, kept hugging each other, and I thought that in this world, it really takes very little to make someone happy. And here, there were two of us feeling happy.

Ramakrishnan, the grandfather, said he had been waiting and hoping to receive that photo, but he never would have expected a gift like this. Well, travel and life sometimes surprise you, and it’s wonderful to say that I have a second family in Sri Lanka.
Well, I’m emotional again.


I want to go back to Sri Lanka. And I want to take you there with me. So take a look at our SRI LANKA ADVENTURE TRIP.

Gab

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