So if you're here watching this video you're probably very very aware of the political and
the economic crisis that Sri Lanka is going through right now. I was actually in Sri Lanka
for the last three months eleven and a half weeks and I was there before the protests started and
before things got really bad and I was there through most of it and throughout this time
I was traveling as much as I could around the countries to the popular tourist destinations
and making videos because that's kind of what I do for living: make videos for this channel. And
I heard a lot of concerns every time I would post anything about Sri Lanka and I noticed that a lot
of people have misconceptions about how these protests are playing out because all you see is
what you see on the news which only focuses on the sensational negative stuff and they don't always
tell you the full story, so I just want to talk a bit more about this so if you're our tourist
who is planning to go to Sri Lanka anytime soon and is concerned or if you're just a foreigner
who's concerned about what all of this looks like from a foreigners perspective in Sri Lanka, this
is the video for you. So before we get started I want to give you a little bit of background
on this situation so you can understand what's happening better and the things that are happening
right now. Sri Lanka is in a political crisis right now but all of this basically started from
an economic crisis which led to Sri Lanka being basically bankrupt. So a lot of things went into
creating this economic crisis right now. First of all Sri Lanka has recently at least been a country
that's very very dependent on tourism and then in 2019 there were the easter Sunday bombings, the
terrorist attacks, where like a lot of people were killed, a lot of foreigners were killed and right
after that in 2020 there was covid so because of strict restrictions on tourists coming in,
the tourism sector was like starving for two, three years straight and that was a big part
of their economy and that really affected the country's ability to get foreign income or to
get foreign revenue into the country. And on top of that there was a lot of arguably
mismanagement by the government and this is where it gets really interesting. A couple of years ago
around the same time right before covid started, the government introduced these tax cuts that were
meant to stimulate the economy but that kind of backfired because that meant the government
was getting just less money from the people, and the government also tried these new agricultural
policies which spectacularly backfired and caused them to lose a lot of money. So all
of these things combined basically led to Sri Lanka running out of its.. almost running out of
its foreign currency reserves. They also started taking out loans from other countries that they
were not able to pay back. Loans from china which made the situation even worse and brought them
even closer to bankruptcy. So it eventually came to the point where Sri Lanka had all these debts
to foreign countries and did not have the foreign currency reserves to pay them. So this meant they
couldn't buy like very essential stuff from abroad because they didn't have the money to buy it.
They didn't have the money to buy fuel which is probably one of the most important things.
They didn't have the money to buy very essential medical supplies and this lack of foreign currency
also led to this inflation that the country had never seen before in all these decades since
independence and it led to the basic commodities getting more expensive without people's salaries
getting any better, and this was partially because the Sri Lankan currency was devaluing at the same
time compared to all other more stable currencies like the dollar the euro. This crisis was caused
partially again due to things that no one could have done anything about, like no one could have
predicted COVID. That was bound to take a hit on tourism but the local people also started pointing
fingers at the government, accusing the government of mismanaging the economy. So this is where this
interesting person comes in the story, Gota, who's the president of Sri Lanka. This guy has actually
a background in the military and was like a very crucial figure in the Sri Lankan civil war that
ended like a decade ago. He was elected president like two and a half years ago and then after
getting elected he appointed one of his brothers as the prime minister. He appointed another one of
his brothers as the finance minister and a bunch of other male figures from his family ended up
being ministers on his cabinet. So obviously when there was all this economic mismanagement. people
were like not happy. Your finance minister is supposed to be the most skilled person in your
country who's capable of running the finances of the country, not your brother. Which is
what people are saying basically. So when things started getting really bad, people basically got
down on the streets and started demanding Gota, the president, to resign. So Gota had other plans. He did
not want to resign and he brutally suppressed these protests which led to even more protests
popping up all throughout the country. When I went to Sri Lanka like the middle of February
there were no protests. now it's happening every other day everywhere in all the cities and this is
because pretty much everyone I’ve met from Sri Lanka is fed up with this government and wants
it to go right now. they want changes. they want it to happen now and the government doesn't want
to go. hence the political crisis right now. So let's come to the most important question that
I get and which you might have as well: how does all of this affect safety for tourists? Well the
good news is for you at least is that it really doesn't affect the safety of tourists. No matter
who it is in Sri Lanka, be it the protesters or be it the government, or be it the police,
they sort of all know that one of the big reasons that this whole crisis is happening
is because tourists stopped coming to Sri Lanka because of covid and for other reasons and no one
wants tourists to stop coming again. So they're doing everything in their power to make sure all
of this is not affecting the tourists. Tourists have extra privileges that even the local people
don't have. Just to provide an example of how much different or safer it is for tourists compared to
the locals, when the protests erupted for the first time in a grand way the government announced
this curfew for I think 48 hours so none of the locals could go out and join the protests. At the
same time every establishment that was meant for tourists was open and running. Every restaurant in
south Sri Lanka that tourists usually go to was open. Every bar was open. There was this like
shady club in Midigama in south Sri Lanka called Cheeky Monkey which is apparently run by the mafia
they had this rave in the middle of all this. So people were out there and dancing to electronic
music in the middle of all this. So it's crazy how a different experience was for locals
as opposed to tourists who like barely felt a difference throughout the protests. it's starting
to rain all of a sudden but the point I was trying to get across is that it's super safe in Sri Lanka
as a tourist, at least just as safe as it used to be before the protests. Ket's talk about other
ways in which uh all this might affect you other than safety. A lot of people are often concerned
about the inflation and how that's affected me. I had people in the comments ask me if I can
still afford food and stuff. So yes inflation is happening but I don't think it's happening as fast
as the currency is devaluing so prices of basic foods and stuff have gone up by like maybe 20
30 50 percent in some places but the price of the dollar has gone up by like 75 percent since I went
to Sri Lanka three months ago. So if your money is in a stable currency that's not Sri Lankan rupees
things are probably cheaper now than they used to be. The hostels that I was staying in April that
I was also staying in February were a lot cheaper (in April) when I was paying in dollars. Now a lot
of places have figured this out and they're starting to charge people in dollars now in
which case the inflation won't be affecting you at all if you go to a venue like that. So now let's
talk about like some of the bad sides to actually traveling to Sri Lanka right now. The biggest thing
is because of these protests it's often hard to get from like one place to the other especially if
you're going between cities because a lot of these protests happen on the streets between big cities
so that might cause the roads to be blocked. That might cause the buses not to run. There's
one time I was going from like Mirissa to Hikkadua in the south and on the way back we saw that like
protesters and cops were like sort of going at each other and they burned a segment of the street
so we had to go around that street go behind this railway track to get around so it was like a 30
minute longer way than we would have usually had to go. But because of these road blocks
because of strikes sometimes it's just hard to get from one to the other. So I was trying to go from
Adam’s peak to Kandy, another city in Sri Lanka, like two weeks ago and then this one day, all the
unions for trains and buses and everything was on strike and we were almost stuck in this village by
Adam's peak so me and my friend eventually had to get a long distance tutuk to go from there
to Kandy which cost like I think 20 times what a train ride would have cost. So these are things
you have to keep in mind. things might be a lot more inconvenient and you have to be flexible with
your routine. When I was going to the airport on my last day, in normal circumstances I would have
just taken a train to like Negombo to the airport on the last date but because it was May 1st,
because I thought there might be protests for labor day, I went a day early to Negombo,
spent the night there to make sure I can catch my fight on time without having to worry about any
delays due to protests on the streets. Now another huge downside of all of this economic crisis
was the power cuts that was happening. So because the country ran out of fuel and because the
country also relies on hydropower and there was like a delayed monsoon season this year,
the country stopped being able to produce as much electricity as was needed to provide the whole
island with electricity. So when I went there in February there were no power cuts at all. When I
was there in late February, early March, the first power cut started coming in. At first it was like
one hour two hours a day. It was very manageable. you just go out and do something else when there
was a power cut. But then this kept getting worse and worse and worse until there were like 13 hour
power cuts at the end of March the start of April. I rely on electricity. I need my computer to edit
these videos. I need wi-fi to upload them and I just couldn't work. When there's no power for 12
hours your laptop lasts like two three maybe four hours tops and then there's like nothing you can
do about it. I remember there was one day when we had a power cut from like 2 p.m till midnight
then we were like okay finally we can go to bed because this is south Sri Lanka where it feels
like it's 35 degrees every day even though it's like 30 degrees because it's so freaking humid
and then like at 3am there was another three-hour power cut and we all (in the hostel dorm) woke up
in the middle of the night sweating because we couldn't sleep in our beds without the fan. It
was insane. So things have gotten a little better on this end. it did start raining after that in
April and this huge like ship of fuel arrived from India which made the situation a lot better
and when I left at the end of April, start of May, there were only like
two three four hours of power cuts a day which is a lot better than 13 hours but still not ideal.
So this is something you definitely want to keep in mind especially if you're digital nomad and
you need electricity you need internet for your job. You don't want to get fired by showing up Sri
Lanka at a time when it doesn't have any power. So to summarize safety is not really an issue
in my opinion and the opinions of all of my friends were there during this whole time,
at least no more of an issue than it used to be before all the protests but power cuts might be an
issue. So this is something you want to consider if you need the internet if you need electricity
all the time when you're staying in Sri Lanka You have to be more flexible. There might be delays in
your travel dates because of protests that block the streets but there are ways to get around it.
On the, I guess, the positive side because of this currency devaluation Sri Lanka is I want to say
cheaper than it used to be three months ago so if you're traveling through Asia
and you need a place to go to that's not very expensive like Korea or Japan, Sri Lanka is a good
place to be right now as a tourist and finally Sri Lanka is a good place to be because it is safe
and they really really really need your foreign currency, your foreign dollars.
The whole reason they're in this mess right now is because people stopped coming so if people
stop going because of all this they're just going to be in a shittier situation with their economy
on the brink of collapse. That's my two cents on all of this. If I made any mistakes especially
about uh discussing the political situation or any details about that feel free to correct me
in the comments. if you like this video feel free to hit the like button. if you want to see more
videos like this I’m probably not going to make a lot more videos like this. This is just something
a lot of people are asking me about so I wanted to clarify. if you know someone who might be uh
benefited from watching this video feel free to share this with them. that's it for this
one. I’ll catch you guys on a normal travel vlog probably next time from Sri Lanka or from India