Ports, Cinnamon and the Supply Chain of Sri Lanka

Sri Lanka's logistics story is visible almost everywhere you look. Colombo sorts containers for the region. Hambantota is building an automotive transshipment business. Tea and cinnamon turn mountain geography into a first-mile challenge, while apparel compresses production timelines into something you can watch happen in a single day. 

In this solo episode, I'm nerding out on the logistics I noticed during a trip through the country. The episode also looks inside Jetwing Yala, where solar power, biomass cooling, desalination, wastewater treatment and biogas make hotel operations part of the supply-chain story.

Links: 

• Jetwing Yala
• Ceylon Artisanal Tea Association
• Watch this episode on YouTube

Note: sorry for the added text in the video version. I spent 25 hours editing this damn thing only to "add a little to the beginning" right before uploading that ended up displaying the rest of a track from an entire other episode. Whoops. If this bothers your OCD like me, hit the YouTube link above to watch the new upload that's free of these rookie mistakes!

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Transcript

SPEAKER_00 0:37

An island the size of West Virginia sits dead center on the world's busiest shipping lane. It supplies 85% of the real cinnamon on earth. It probably made something hanging in your closet, and its main port just moved a record 8.3 million containers in a single year. This is Sri Lanka, and most Americans couldn't find you on a map. I just spent two weeks there, went for my cousin's wedding, and stayed for a honeymoon. And by complete accident, our hotel room looked straight over the port of Colombo. Now, when you run a logistics media company and you wake up to a wall of container cranes, the trip changes a bit. This episode is everything that I couldn't stop noticing. The ports, the commodities, and a hotel that built its own utility grid from scratch. Welcome into another episode of Everything Is Logistics, a podcast for the Thinkers in Freight. I am your host, Blythe Milligan, and we are proudly presented by SPI Logistics. And in this episode, I want to talk about my visit and my time to Sri Lanka. And it's really an island that has run global trade for at least a couple of thousands of years of the known human civilization that we timeline, I guess, that we find ourselves in. And I wanted to bring up some points just based on the overall geography of the country, some facts about their supply chain. And then later on, we're going to get into you know some source-to-porch knowledge of coconuts, of cinnamon, of tea, and then also some of the Sri Lanka street food that we found ourselves gravitating towards and just some vibes of the overall country. So if you're interested in international logistics and what happens outside of the United States, then this episode is for you. Now let's get back to why this island matters. Now the location, it's Sri Lanka. It's it's it's a country that sits off of the south tip or the southern tip of India. Uh, surrounded, it's essentially an island. There is some channel islands that used to connect the country of India to Sri Lanka, um, but the water levels have risen over hundreds of years. And so they're now just little dotted islands that live in a they call it technically the land bridge that used to connect the two countries. Now it sits halfway between the Suez Canal and the Strait of Malacca, and it's the main Asia-Europe shipping lane that passes just off of its southern coast. Ships are visible from the beach and also my hotel, which I have a couple of photos, which I'll add in here during the editing process, or you can see the cranes in the background, and that's just a small view of the cranes at the port of Colombo. This is a country that, especially in this area, there's lots of construction going on, and even off in the distance, you can see some of the older, more historic buildings that look like they come right out of an English village. For folks who may not be aware, this, you know, the British had, you know, a very famous history with colonialism, and it definitely impacted the area of India and Sri Lanka. And so you can see some of that history still remaining in not just the architecture that exists on the island itself, but also in some of the geopolitical tensions that have you know affected the country negatively over the past, you know, say 100 years, since a lot of those, you know, uh, I don't want to say efforts, but a lot of those issues were were going on. And a lot of those issues still remain to this day. Now, the port outside of our hotel window is is the port of Colombo, and it handles a it handled a record of 8.3 million TEUs in 2025, and that's according to the Sri Lanka Ports Authority, and over 80% of it is transshipments. So that typically means that cargo that isn't going to Sri Lanka at all, it's giant ships that drop containers off at Colombo's deep water berths, where smaller feeder ships carry them to the India ports or the Indian ports that are too shallow for the big vessels. Colombo is basically a sorting hub for all of South Asia, even during the you know more historical days. I'm reading this book right now. You can see it in the background. It's called a splintered exchange, how trade shaped the world. And even back at the days where China, the country was pretty closed off, as far as like their exports and their how they handled shipping out of their goods, the furthest that they went was to Sri Lanka. And so it kind of just rings true about you know Sri Lanka being this country that not just today, but for hundreds, even thousands of years, has been this country where a lot of different cultures and a lot of different meeting points have taken place because of that just super valuable trade lane that they sit right smack dab in the middle of. Now, the other port that everyone kind of argues about is further south. It's called Humbun Tota. It's uh one of the most it's famous for its 99-year lease to a Chinese company. The media calls it a debt trap diplomacy, debt trap diplomacy. Try to say that alliteration, you know, five times fast. But the operational reality here is it's quietly, quietly becoming a car-moving machine. And for for folks who may not be aware, China has this belt and road initiative that they have been deploying all across the globe for the past decade or so, where they come into a country, they offer to build up your ports, your infrastructure, your roads, your bridges, all of those things like that. And they basically take a piece of that pie. Now, if you can't, you as a country, if you can't pay back your debt in a timely manner, then within the lease itself, China typically will dictate that they can now own that port, own that infrastructure, and then the people of that country have to pay an even higher toll. And so this is a way that China has kind of gained soft power, is investing in all of these different countries and their infrastructure, something that I would argue that the US has should have been doing for a long time, but for whatever reason has it. I'll have to maybe cover that in a future episode. But Sri Lanka partnered with China in that regard, and that's how a lot of their infrastructure is built up. I was very impressed with a lot of their different roads seen all across the country, you know, driving not just in the city, but in the countryside as well. Smooth roads, definitely not like, you know, in some places here in the US where it you struggle to even get roads repaved. There's potholes everywhere. Speaking of my neighborhood, we have potholes all over the place. So it's it was very impressive to see that, especially when I've gone to other island countries, and that hasn't always been the case. So very, very impressed with the infrastructure over in Sri Lanka. But that going back to that port, the Humbab Tuta or Tota, Humband Tuta, I think that yeah, I'm probably butchering that. But they moved a little over 727,000 vehicles in 2025. That's up 25% from the year before. And in June 2026, with its its biggest month ever, after shipping lines rerouted cargo over there via the because of the Strait of Hormuz risk. And so a lot of the the I guess the shipments that should have gone through the Strait of Hormuz, they're now just gonna do transshipment in Sri Lanka and just gonna have a bunch of smaller ships take that freight off and move it through India and through the rest of the Southeast and into other countries that that need those supplies. So the geography is is kind of destiny. It's an island that owns some of the best real estate in the ocean and it's existed in that sort of realm of perception for thousands of years. Now, the next part of the trip, and this is just, you know, sort of the I want to talk about the city for a little bit, and then I want to talk about the country side of it because in the city, uh, you you might live, or if I take it back to the United States for a second, you might live in an area that has adopted golf carts. I live in Florida, so there's beach towns, you know, all over the place, and everybody has a friggin' golf cart. And they use that as in unless they're going to work, which you know, maybe you live and work at the beach, which lucky if you are, but for a lot of folks, they use it as sort of their daily transportation. And in the opposite side of the world, over in Sri Lanka, they have what's called a tuk-tuk. And it's a small kind of three-person vehicle. It's open air for the most part, open air. You have the driver that sits in the front, they're gas powered for the most part. I didn't see any electrical ones. I don't know that that would make sense for that kind of a vehicle. But you have the driver that sits in the row one, and then you have row two, where up to three people can sit in that tuk-tuk, and you can ride hail them just like you would call an Uber. They have an app over there called Pick Me, and they, you know, you can get a regular car or you can get a tuk-tuk. You can even uh schedule for a motorcycle that you could ride on the back of someone's motorcycle in order to get from point A to B. I would never do that personally, because I just, first of all, I don't like motorcycles, but the tuk-tuks were incredible. I do not legitimately have a good reason of why this hasn't overtaken more in the states, especially when golf carts are such a cultural thing in, especially in the state of Florida. I don't know why, you know, similar beach vibes as Sri Lanka, why we wouldn't adopt a tuk-tuk as well. But it was super fun to be able to cruise around in those little vehicles and you know to get from point A to B and to be able to experience another mode of transportation, especially for people, because you know, they weren't just you know transferring people, they were also, you know, delivering food with these things and picking up supplies from one place to another. So it was just a really cool little vehicle. And again, I will add those in during the editing process so you can get a good glimpse of of what they look like and you know, just the riding experience itself. But you basically step out of the hotel and it's the street level, it's it's really its own supply chain. So there's vendor stands everywhere, there's fresh fruit, there's things like that, you know, boiled chickpeas, and you know, there there's uh there's this fruit called Rumbuntan. It looks almost like alien. It's bright pink, it has some like green, like green and brown little spiny things coming out of it. I've seen this fruit at the flea market, like the produce stands at the flea market, and I've always wondered what it was. But in Sri Lanka was the first time that I actually tried it and was brave enough to try it because someone showed me how to actually eat it. So you just literally cut it in half and you open it up, and it looks like a mix between a grape and a lychee. So those were delicious. We have since like since coming back home, I'll get into you know a few of the other things that we have purchased and started making at home, but that's one fruit that we are like addicted to now. And we have at least one every single day. So that has been a good little cultural thing from Sri Lanka that we've brought back. I wish we could also do the coconuts as well, because coconuts were everywhere as far as street food is concerned. Fruits, juices, you know, things like that. Think of like, you know, the Caribbean island that you've been to and a lot of the same fruit stands and and vendors' street food stands, it's exactly the same in in Sri Lanka, just a little bit different of fruits. Now, we got the fruit now with the pan that I brought. So it's like a cooking pan, and we made these things or we ate these things called hoppers. And basically what it is, is it's it's a circular pan and it has a rice flour as a coating on the bottom. So you pour in your rice flour, and then in the middle you crack an egg, and so it creates this almost like bowl for the egg to sit in. And you can eat your egg, you know, very similar to like over medium or over hard, over easy if you wanted to, but the rice flour kind of makes it like a crispy texture, almost like a phila dough in like the crispy texture-ness of it. But then whenever you're actually eating the, you know, the protein along with it, it's a really, really good mix because it's almost like a little bit sweet. And so you get that kind of sweet and savory mix when you're eating your hopper. Now we had hoppers damn near every day on this trip, so much so that when we got back home, I went and bought this pan. It's called an Apache. I I don't know if I'm saying I'm gonna say this a lot. I don't know if I'm pronouncing this correctly, so please forgive me. I'm doing my best. But yeah, it's a shallow curved pan for egg hoppers. And so we just got one of those delivered, and so we're gonna be making some egg hoppers here back at home. And another thing that that came home with me that I first tried there is what's called pulsam bowl. And it's basically like a coconut relish that you can't really taste the coconut, but it's the coconut shavings, and it's like chili powder and chili flakes, onions, a little bit of salt, a little bit of pepper. And I think that is all of the ingredients. Oh, a little bit of lime as well, and you mix it all like you mix it like freaking crazy. Everything has to be like finely, finely diced and minced up. And so when you mix it all together, you don't, you shouldn't see any white parts in the pole sambal. And then when you sprinkle it on, you can sprinkle it on most of everything: your eggs, your steaks, salads, curries, anything that you that's kind of has a savory taste to it. This is what you want to add because it adds a little bit of kick to it. And it just the, I think the texture, it was, I loved it so much that I had to learn how to make it. And now we have at least three mason jars full of it in the freezer right now because I it's just gonna be one of those toppings that we use on a daily basis. So that was another thing that I took home with me and I really loved from like a street food vendor experience. Because I will say, for a lot of the hotel experiences that we had, a lot of them had buffets. And so I'm typically not a buffet person because I get full really fast and I kind of want, you know, I'm a I'm a to go box girly. And so I will, you know, treat it as almost like two meals where I get to enjoy it hot and fresh, and then I take the rest home and eat it back home. Now, for Sri Lanka, what made the buffet really appealing is that you got to try a bunch of different foods and you got to try without having to commit to one meal and hope for the best. And so being able to try a bunch of different foods, I saw the pulse and bowl served at every single buffet to the point where I was like, I gotta see what this is. And once I tried it, thank God I tried it earlier in the trip because once I did, it was an everyday staple from from here on out. And so being able to bring some of these items back home from our trip has just been so much fun to try and, you know, recreate those moments and bring, you know, a little piece of of the country's cooking back home with you and share it with your friends and family and tell them about your trip so they can kind of you know enjoy a little piece of it too. So that was really cool. Another really cool part of the trip was seeing just the fabric district. Now, I I explained earlier that I was there for a wedding, for my cousin's wedding. I have friends from India that have given me saris, let me borrow saris. And sari is, you know, a a very like beautiful, like head-to-toe gown, usually bright colors, very sparkly, especially for a wedding, very sparkly. Um, but I didn't want, I was worried about the weight in my suitcase. And so I said, well, I think I can go to one of these. And I had talked to a few people that were already in Sri Lanka, and they had assured me they were like, you're you'll be able to find something, you know, kind of ready to wear, as long as you, you know, go looking for it. And so we got in on a on a Thursday, and the wedding was on a Saturday. I went on Friday at about 11 a.m. and I went to the fabric district, and you walk into this fabric district, and it's an entire wall of just all of these different colors, these different types of fabrics. And as soon as you point to one, you have a guy, you know, going to grab it and pulling it out and just laying the fabric all over the table. You point to another one, he grabs that one, and before you know it, you have like six different types of fabric that are all sitting on the table, and you're just in awe and you're not sure which one to actually pick. But there was one that really stood out that I knew I knew I wanted kind of like a mint green color. And so as soon as I saw the mint green, as soon as I saw the, you know, the gorgeous embroidery on it, I said, this is gonna be the one I'm gonna get. And immediately, like you stand on this pedestal, they measure you, they wrap the fabric around you, and then as soon as you get it paid for it, as soon as you decide that's what you want to get, then they send it to the back, they send it into the shop, and they have teams, and when I say teams of seamstresses, seamstresses, all sitting back there and sewing. I didn't realize that that infrastructure was all set up in the back of the actual fabric shop. And so when I came back the very next day, like within 24 hours, they had that ready for me. They had my sorry ready for me. And it was the most beautiful thing that I've ever tried on, uh, that I've ever worn. I got so many compliments at the wedding because of it. But it was just an incredible experience because I've one, I've had clothes tailored for me in the past, but I've never had something custom made. I've never had heard of that quick of a turnaround. And then when I came to pick up the sorry the next day, they had custom made a top fit specifically for me. And so I was trying it on. They were making adjustments to it. They'd throw it right in a sewing machine right after you know we made the adjustments. We did that a couple of times before it was ready to go. And then before you know it, I had a complete gorgeous sari made in about 24 hours, probably less than 24 hours. So that was really, really that that was an incredible experience. And when I went back to pick it up, I noticed how many more shops that there were that had, you know, did this same business model. And you know, come to find out that Sri Lanka is very, very textiles is is one of their top exports. In fact, I think everyone knows that. So this is a line that I put in my notes. It says everyone knows Sri Lanka for tea and cinnamon, but their biggest export by far is clothing. Apparel export exports hit a record of roughly five billion dollars in 2025. That's close to 40% of everything the company or the country ships out. That's according to the Joint Apparel Association forum. Now, brands you might know, like Victoria's Secret and Nike, they all source from Sri Lanka Garment Makers. And from my first hand experience, being able to go right to the source to get the fabric, to have it measured, to have it made, and then be able to wear it that night, you know, to, you know, I I think it was really important for me to, you know, support the local businesses in the area, to have that experience and then to get the reaction while wearing it at the wedding was incredible because all the Sri Lankan women, including like a you know, some of the little girls, like they were, they told me how pretty the sari was, and that meant a lot to me. And so it would it just made for like an overall great experience, which sidebar the the hospitality in Sri Lanka is is really unmatched compared to Mexico. I think Mexico and Sri Lanka are like one A and one B to me as far as hospitality is concerned, because the people were incredible that they were super helpful. They almost felt, especially at the wedding, they almost felt insulted if you tried to like get up and you know make your own drink or grab something for yourself. They're like, no, no, no, I'm gonna get it for you. So it was very like you felt very well taken care of. And that uh again, the hospitality is was just unmatched. And so, because of that, it just led to this beautiful experience of going from the city because we had the wedding in the city, and then from there, so my cousin and you know, my not my immediate family, but my you know, family, and then along with my cousin's husband and some of his family, that's when the the country part of the the tour of Sri Lanka started, which I can't say enough how cool it was to almost have like personal guides that were born there, that you know, knew the culture, knew where the cool spots were, to be able to have those types of people usher you around in a country that you've never visited before, is it just makes the experience that much better. And so going into our next topic, the country part of this story. And that's really where it comes down to the commodities. And for a lot of the commodities, because when you're driving through the countryside, all you see is just these beautiful fields. Sometimes you'll see, like, you know, a Hindu temple or a Buddhist temple that just appears out of nowhere, that's so gorgeous. You'll see these rice patties, you'll see cinnamon fields and obviously tea as well, because Sri Lanka is is known for their tea. And in fact, I think it was, if I have it, I don't know that I have it in my notes in in this particular section. But the country, instead of Sri Lanka, it was called the country's name, it was changed to Sri Lanka in like the 70s, but it used to be called Ceylon, and Ceylon is for the tea. And I think yeah, I actually right, if you're watching this, I actually have some Ceylon tea right next to here. And I think I can get the camera to kind of look at it, but well, maybe not. But it's like an Indian, Indian elephant looking tin, it's called black elephant, and it's called Pure Ceylon tea. And because uh Ceylon used to be the name of the country, now it's Sri Lanka, as I just said. But the tin says grown where the air is clean and the soil is rich, fine orange picot trees from the specially selected estates of Ceylon. It has exquisite flavor and amber liquor liqueur, all in one blend. It gives the warmth that you need to keep truly satisfied any time of the day. So yeah, just a really cool. This is only like one of many tins that we bought as far as tea is concerned. Now, back to cinnamon, because cinnamon, especially in the States, is something that usually reminds me of like Christmas time. I'm not one of these people that has like cinnamon candles and things like that because the scent is almost too strong to me. The the flavor is almost overpowering. And I thought that I didn't really like cinnamon all that much. Just mainly in like, you know, like I said, Christmas time or, you know, in some desserts, like a cinnamon roll, for example. That's the really the only time that I've historically have kind of messed around with cinnamon. Apple spice, you know, apple spice vinegar, things like that. But what I found out, and especially after this trip, because I knew that Sri Lanka was famous for their cinnamon, but their cinnamon is completely different than the cinnamon that we typically have in the States and really maybe have tried globally, because the cinnamon that is sold in US grocery stores is actually called cassia. It's a related tree bark that's grown mainly in Indonesia, China, and Vietnam. It's thicker, harder, cheaper, and it has a stronger flavor. Cassia is high in cumarin, a natural compound that can stress the liver in large doses. The EU actually limits how much Kumarin foods can contain. Now, Ceylon cinnamon is the original. It's native to Sri Lanka, it's softer, it's sweeter with its paper thin layers instead of the hard curl and almost no Kumarin. I don't, again, hopefully I'm pronouncing that right. This is why it is called true cinnamon. Now, Sri Lanka supplies about 85% of the world's true cinnamon, and that's according to Yunindo, the Sri Lanka Export Development Board. But why it's a logistics headache is because harvesters peel the inner bark by hand into thin quills, a skill that has been passed down for generations. It's high value, it's extremely fragile, and it hates moisture. Exporters pack it with food grade moisture barrier liners, sealed bag layers inside the container that keep the humidity out. And if ocean moisture gets in during transit, the load molds and the whole container is a write-off. Now, tea, on the other hand, has the opposite problem. Ceylon tea brought in over 1.5 billion in 2025, roughly a tenth of the country's exports, according to Sri Lanka EDB. And its bottleneck is the first mile, not the ocean. Premium leaf grows in steep central highlands and it comes down the narrow cliffside roads in small box trucks to the Colombo tea auction. Now we drove past those tea fields and those roads. It's really a daily logistics miracle. And now I said this in a recent Freight Friends episode where you know we we talk about the way that Sri Lanka does things and the way that they do things are mainly through the hard work of farmers. And it's mainly done by hand. Picking the tea leaves, stripping, you know, cinnamon tree. I mean, I it Ceylon cinnamon or the cinnamon trees that grow in Sri Lanka, you are it's essentially a tree. It looks like a normal tree. And when you cut part of the bark, that's when you can kind of rip the bark from around the tree itself. And when it dries, that's when it gets into that shriveled up cinnamon kind of shape that a lot of people know and love. And so, but a lot of that has to be handpicked by farmers, handmade by farmers. And when you have those additional steps versus like Lipton tea, for example, who, you know, Mr. Lipton actually got his tea from Sri Lanka, owns, I believe, a couple of tea farms there. And so, but they mass produce it, they don't necessarily care about the quality of the tea. What's kind of cool is that, you know, I've I've become more aware of the local farmers who are trying to keep the tradition alive of hand picking these, these the different teas and the spices and the cinnamon, of course. And so they they're they're basically starting up their own artisanal spices kind of association. And I'll I'll link to it in the show notes because they they are trying to get a greater awareness around something that has been culturally important and also economically important to this country and that they don't want to lose. They don't want to lose it to sort of the mass manufacturing model that you know can destroy the plants, that can not really care about, you know, the farmland and you know, making sure it's regenerative and that, you know, if you you don't strip the soil of all of its nutrients and then you know you can't grow anything else on that land anymore. They're they're trying to not take that route that so many other countries have, you know, been kind of forced to take. And they want to try to promote more of the artisanal farmers who want to do things the right way, the way that they have been doing them for hundreds, maybe even thousands of years. And so there's a growing effort among awareness with the farmers that, hey, you can still keep doing things the same way that you've always done them. You can also invite the interest of the younger generation, because for a lot of the farmers, they are older. I think that's probably a safe bet for the majority of farmers all across the globe is that they they come from a different generation, an older generation, and it's tough to get the new generation to play a role. But what they're finding out is that by, you know, emphasizing the reasons why they do things the slow way or the slower way is for very good reason. And so that is sort of inviting in, you know, the the mindset of the supply chain is the product, and that if you can promote where things come from, who is who is managing the land, who is growing and what they're growing, the people behind the work, if you can humanize that and promote, you know, really the the the marketing behind the supply chain is the product, then you can invite a new generation into understanding and appreciating why you've done things a certain way for so long. And so I really applaud those efforts. And I'll put a link to it in the show notes where you can catch out or you can check out more of the artisanal movement that's going on within the farmers of Sri Lanka. So those are some really cool, you know, commodity stories. Another commodity story is the coconuts because the coconuts were freaking everywhere. Now, as a Floridian, I am no stranger to coconuts. They're mostly in, we don't typically get a lot of them. Now we have access to them at produce markets and things like that. But our palm trees in Northeast Florida and Jacksonville, where I'm based out, they don't have any coconuts, sadly. But I've been to enough, you know, South Florida and you know, Caribbean islands and just Central America to see a lot of coconut trees. And but these were, this is a completely different experience for me because the coconuts were freaking everywhere. And one of the houses that we stayed in near the beach, we had the the Airbnb host lived in the house next door, and he was also the chef for the weekend. And so, you know, we were talking about the coconuts. He's like, You want coconuts? I'll go get you some. He literally took a ladder outside, went up the coconut tree, chopped them down, and we had fresh coconuts immediately. We got to learn how to chop open a coconut. We drank them straight out of the damn coconut itself. And there were two different coconuts. There was the king coconut and then another coconut. I'm blanking on the name of it. But there is, you know, technically a supply chain problem around coconuts, or it could maybe turn into a solution because the world is just kind of gravitating more towards like palm oils and coconut oils and coconut milks and things like that. But Sri Lankans eat nearly two-thirds of their own coconut harvest. So the export industry runs on whatever is left. Production dropped from 3.35 billion nuts. That's what they call coconuts. So 3.35 billion nuts in 2022 to 2.68 billion in 2024. Retail prices hit record highs and exports still earned $909 million in the first nine months of 2025. That's up about 42%. But because scarcity has pushed prices up. Now, if you were driving around Sri Lanka, you would not know that these things were or these coconuts were actually, you know, is scarce because they were on every single tree. So maybe it's just um a matter of gathering them up, sort of that first mile of the coconuts before they spoil. So that might be an issue because one of my cousins is from Jamaica and he said that for all of the palm trees in Jamaica, those coconuts would not be sitting there very long because people would be climbing the tree and eating them. And so for you know, for a lot of Caribbean islands, they have they know, you know, and I don't want to say Sri Lankans don't know the power of coconut, but maybe it's because uh Sri Lanka is maybe a bigger island and that they have much more palm trees. There might be something, you know, some other things that I'll have to look into as far as you know why they have so many more, but exports are dropping and they're seeing some scarcity. And so, but at least the Sri Lankans are eating them, especially if the stat is correct, where it says, you know, two-thirds, nearly two-thirds of their own coconuts, the Sri Lankans are eating themselves. So good for them because it's in, I mean, the country is very hot, it's right near the uh not the border, it's right near the oh my god, I can't believe I'm blanking on this equator. It's right near the equator. So it was very hot and humid. But as a Floridian, I'm used to that, so it wasn't really, you know, too hard of a thing for me to adjust. But you need some hydration whenever you're in those types of temperatures. So it was cool to have those on hand and on deck. Now, the translation for all of this is that dinner tables and export containers are competing for the same nut. The country is developing a new northern coconut triangle that includes fresh growing regions, not to to really just to close the gap of those exports, because I mean, like I said, coconut oil, coconut milk, things like that, all of those are in a much higher supply globally as people start making the transition from you know overly processed foods into more natural selections that we can use for our cooking and our eating and our drinking. Now that there's also export demands that come from products like quar, now that's rope and mat fiber made from the husk of coconut and activated carbon, which is a filter material made from burned shells used in water filters, which is super cool that it, you know, you have one product that can turn into so many different things. And I think when I was on tour at the DHL Innovation Center in Chicago, they had some packaging material that was made out of coconut husk. And so that's a really clever just way to reuse something that would typically be waste product. It wouldn't be used really for anything, but you're finding uses for it here, like rope and mat fiber, and then uh activated carbon, which is a filter material made from burned shells used in water filters. Never knew that before. I don't know if they would actually advertise that, but it would be pretty cool if it was there. Now, into some of the more cooler parts of the trip, and that is wild animals and um, I don't want to say weird paper, but maybe some folks could consider this weird because while for a lot of folks who may not know, Sri Lanka has access to safaris via their national parks. We stayed at a resort, and I'll get more into the jet wing resort here in a second, but we stayed at a resort that was on the outskirts of the Yala National Forest, and because of that, there was wild elephants, there were buffalo, there were peacocks, they even um it's a it's a type of lizard, and I'm blanking on the name of it, but it kind of looks like a midi, a mini Komodo dragon. So big lizards. I mean, I'm Floridian again. I am used to iguanas and lizards all the time, but these things look like uh mini dinosaurs. So that was crazy to see. Also, monkeys, lots of birds, but again, birds don't really impress me all that much. I'm sorry. But staying next to the national park, we were able to do an early morning safari. So we got to see all of these animals up close, including a leopard that was lying on a rock. You could barely see it through the trees, but it was the the safari was an incredible experience. And so it was also really cool to be at the hotel and to see a warning sign for elephants, and it was just kind of giving you a heads up that elephants do walk around, they do traverse on the beach and then also come up to the resort. Actually, the the hotel staff love when this happens. I've actually seen a video on TikTok, the same exact hotel that we stayed at. They kind of have an open-air lobby, and an elephant one time like walked into the lobby. It was just kind of hanging out and just checking things out. I thought that was super cool. It didn't happen on my trip, unfortunately, but it was really cool to go back and kind of watch some videos of some close interactions that folks have had with wildlife that is at and near the hotel. Now, look when we were at the hotel, the closest thing to wildlife that we saw is that you know, you would have some cows that would walk up and kind of hang out by the pool, which was very unique and interesting to just have a bunch of cows that were just hanging out all day, every day near next to the pool. But yeah, you know, live and let live. And it was just a really cool, um, different experience and and and different vibe. But for you know, because you have all of those animals walking around all the time, especially when it comes to elephants, elephants leave some droppings and they leave some droppings that are kind of how can I say this? Okay, in my notes, it says elephants digest poorly. So their waste is most mostly impact or intact plant fiber. Local businesses collect it, they sterilize it, they pulp it, and they press it into premium paper and they sell it to tourists and export it. So, yes, there is such a thing as elephant dung paper. You would not be able to tell it looks like regular, kind of maybe like an earthy type paper. I guess you can kind of see some of the maybe uh I guess the fibers in the paper itself, but it's a normal writing experience. It doesn't stink, it feels like normal paper, and then they turn it also into different like tourist supplies and things like that. So I thought that that was a really clever way to turn waste into something that's kind of a fun, like you know, dinner conversation, a fun little tourist gift, things like that. But turning waste literally into something that you can actually use, I think was a genius sort of way of recycling. And that's sort of the ethos of the entire, not just the country itself, because Sri Lanka isn't alone in that, you know, they they they want to reduce the amount of plastics that they're using. So there was a lot of glass that that they wanted you to use. And even the hotel itself being in such a remote area, they have you know solar panels that power the hotel. You wouldn't be able to tell because the you know, you don't lose power, they blast the AC. Even the toilet paper is recyclable that's recycled from you know toiletries from on the grounds itself. They also recycle the ocean water and waste water into the pool. And in it's it, it might, I don't want to say it might sound gross, but it's I mean, it was completely fine, it was completely pure. Um, but yeah, it was it was just it was a model in sustainability that I think for for this hotel to be that beautiful, also affordable. We paid about $200 a night for a five-star resort USD. And when I took one step in this hotel, and I I thought to myself, if this was in Orlando or if this hotel was at Disney, you would be paying minimum a thousand dollars a night. It was that beautiful, right on the ocean. Now you couldn't go swimming because it's that time of the year where the waves are just insane. And for folks who who may not know, for uh for this particular part of the world, you have the the trade winds that blow in one way for six months out of the year, doesn't stop. And then for the other six months, it blows in the opposite direction. So even in like old supply chain days or so, you know, trading days when it was just uh, you know, big ships that were sailing the ocean, there were sailors that knew that you could only get to these islands that, you know, in India or in Sri Lanka, as far as an island is concerned, you could only get there when it was a certain time of the year and the winds were in your favor. Now, once you got there and you wanted to get back, you kind of just had to wait, unless you wanted to trek on foot or take a camel or something across the desert. At least that's how the old silk and spice roads worked, especially according to this book. That is fantastic. So far, I'm about a hundred pages in, and I probably have 40 pages dog eared of just knowledge that I never knew about, all related um to these early spice and silk road days. So the jet wing yala footage, or I'll put that in as I'm kind of talking over it, which you've probably already seen at this point in the video. But it's it sits in a remote dry zone on the edge of a national park. There's no municipal power, there's no municipal water, they built their own utilities. Like I mentioned earlier, they have a 300 kilowatt solar park. It's the largest hotel installation in Sri Lanka and it covers 80% of the daytime electricity. Now, the cooling, the air conditioning runs on a steam from a boiler, burning about 4,000 kilograms of cinnamon wood a day. Now, going back to the cinnamon segment, that wood is discarded by it's a discarded byproduct of the spice harvest. So it's bought from local farmers and it's a commodities waste stream is another operations fuel. That's kind of a, I guess, a the running theme within this episode, very similar to the coconut example that I gave earlier. That's exactly what's happening here. Now, back to the water, it's on-site reverse osmosis plant, turn seawater into drinking water. It's basically uh it's pushing seawater through a membrane that strips the salt, which is super cool. All wastewater gets treated and reused, and food waste becomes biogas for the kitchen staff. I do not know what biogas means, and I probably should have looked that up, but let's find out right now. A bioga is a renewable combustible gas generated by the biological breakdown of organic materials like agricultural waste, manure, and food scraps in an oxygen-free environment. It's primarily composed of methane and carbon dioxide. It provides a sustainable alternative, alternative to fossil fuels and can be used for electricity, heating, or transport. So that's a cool, uh, that's a cool little nugget. Because even with the the toilet paper itself, I did sneak a roll of toilet paper back home and used it up until it was gone. But it's made from wheat husk instead of tree pulp. So notice this like first hand on the property because the bathroom was one of the most gorgeous bathrooms I've ever seen. When you walk in, it's just this open air kind of concept where you have the toilet on the right, you have the big sink on the left, and then the back half of the room, you have two giant faucets. One is like a kind of a normal shower, and then the other faucet that comes out of the wall is almost like a steady stream. And so the way I kind of used it is that, you know, if we went to the pool for a little bit, came back to the room, then you could use the one that's like kind of like the stream to kind of rinse the pool water off. But if you wanted like a quote unquote real shower, then you have that there as well. And it was all like open concept, super, super cool. Nothing was closed off. I really love the layout of that bathroom. And I think if I ever, you know, go to remodel a bathroom, then that's the blueprint that I want to use just because it was so convenient. It was really cool. It was also just like a jaw-dropping moment to walk into that bathroom and see that. So it was basically a really cool, it was an incredible hotel that practiced sustainability efforts and rightfully so because they're right next to a national park. But when you hear those phrases, you might think that you would be low on amenities. That is not the case. You had full amenities, service was incredible, 10 out of 10 experience, and it was just it was one of those moments where, because I didn't mention, but earlier in this trip, my husband and I had been wanting to take a honeymoon. We got married almost two years ago, a little over two years ago. Yeah, if I had my math right. But we didn't take an immediate honeymoon. We wanted to take the honeymoon at the one-year anniversary. But at the one year anniversary, we were trying to use reward miles to book a flight to Japan. It didn't quite work out. Reward miles, if you've ever done reward miles, you know it's a tricky game. Sometimes you get lucky with the flights, sometimes you don't. We did not get lucky back in October. But because my cousin was getting married, we said, okay, well, let's finally take this trip. Let's finally, you know, do this right. And so we did Japan for six days before Sri Lanka. And so when we were in Japan, it wonderful part of the trip felt very much like you know a big city. It was just my husband and I there. So we didn't have you know a ton of family or anything that we could kind of hang out with and have fun with and try new things with. Completely different experience than Sri Lanka. And so when we got to Sri Lanka, you know, in the first few days, we're staying at this incredible hotel, Shangri-La, right next to the Port of Colombo. And so you're still kind of dealing with like big city type environments. But it wasn't until we got to the countryside that, you know, you're you're staying at, you know, a house that's close to the beach. Um, you know, little things like uh one big thing for me is that you know, they have AC units in each of the rooms, but it wasn't on whenever you first got there. So it was just a little bit of like getting used to like, okay, you're coming out of like the heat humidity, you just want to walk into something that has air conditioning. And then, you know, you're sitting in the house and you kind of feel yourself like getting a little grumpier and you know, just getting to a place where it's like, oh, you know, it's it's kind of that part of the trip where it's like, you know, we we we just want to, we're kind of ready to go home, you know. Um, and it was it was kind of like it put me in a little bit of a half day funk. And I think this probably happens at for a lot of people who who travel, where you just there you probably have like a half of a day where you're like, I'm out of my routine. I kind of just want to be home, you know, I want to have my own comforts and things like that. And now I'm put into an environment where it's like I don't really have the comforts of home. Like we're staying at an Airbnb, so that's a different experience at a hotel that you can kind of just, you know, get room service, you can kind of go, you know, down to you know the lobby and maybe check out some restaurants there, what they have going on. This was an Airbnb, so you're kind of just stuck there. But I say that in the best way possible because it was such a mind shift change for me that I had a moment where I was like just a little grumpy, kind of ready to go home. And then I had remembered this Anthony Bourdain quote, and I'm gonna pull it up, but it's a line about travelers who gripe about the comforts most of the world will never touch. And that in that moment, I remembering that phrase, I felt like a complete jerk because the things I was experiencing, the places I was staying, the things I was seeing, very few people on this planet will ever get a chance to do that. And even in a country that, you know, the average person makes, you know, around $500 USD a month in Sri Lanka and to hear myself complaining for, you know, I guess give myself a little bit of grace, but to hear myself complaining in that environment, it was kind of a moment where you tell yourself to snap back to reality. And it's, you know, the best parts about traveling, especially in my experience, and especially in in Sri Lanka, was you're not going to have all of the comforts and sort of the rural society of, you know, a Japan or even the US, even the comforts of home. But when you travel to different places and you force yourself to, you know, try new things and to experience new things and to talk to new people, you know, that to me is the ethos of traveling. And that's sort of the snapback to reality that I had missed and that I was, at least for half of a day, you know, just completely oblivious to and kind of in my own selfish world. And being able to snap out of that and then fully embrace the unknown, fully embrace the uncomfortable. I I and see a part that a lot of Americans maybe will never see. I I don't want to over-understate this, but it's it's one of those moments where you really feel blessed to do what you do, to see what you are seeing, to experience what you are seeing, knowing that you only have, you know, such a short time on this planet. And the more you see, the more you experience, the more you realize how much left of this world or how much of this world that you still have to see, that you still have to experience. And that I think that is the beautiful part of traveling and being able to take part in trips like this and experiences like this, is that it really hits your soul on a different level. And so I say all that because you know, the Japan portion of our trip was a lot of fun. And it was incredible to be able to try all the food, the wagu and the sushi and the fit, you know, all of those, and you know, all the nerd culture of Japan. But Sri Lanka did something different to me and it touched my soul in a way that very few places have. Mexico and Peru, I would put right up there, as far as you know, places that I visited that have touched me on like a cellular, like soulful level. And I just thought that that was an important part to kind of mention in this sort of recap. And as we come down to the to the end of this video, I did not think it was going to be this long. I thought it would be able to knock this out in about 30 minutes, but this was really an important for me to experience. It kind of gave me a fresh new life on you know what I'm doing with my life, with my career, and you know, content like this. And this is content that I thoroughly enjoy making. And I hope that you know you enjoyed this episode as well. I hope it encourages you to go to a place like Sri Lanka, hopefully Sri Lanka, so that you can experience, you know, what this country has to offer, the beautiful people, the hospitality, the food, the incredible nature, all of those things that you want out of a trip, you will find in this country. And I just feel so, so blessed to be able to share it with all of you. So thank you if you are still listening. Thank you for listening this far into the video and into the episode. We have more of this coverage coming soon over on everythingislogistics.com. And stay tuned to my social channels so you can see more of these clips from the trip. But hope you enjoyed this episode, and we will see you soon.