Why "Bunky Monkey"?
The purple-faced langur — what my family have always called the "bunky monkey" —
lives in the forests near where I grew up. It's an endemic Sri Lankan species:
you won't find it anywhere else in the world. It's shy, it lives in the canopy,
and most tourists never see one.
That animal is the frame for what I do. The Sri Lanka I take people to see is
the version you find when you go past the obvious stops. The langur is there
if you know where to look. So is the real Sri Lanka.
How I work
I'm an on-demand guided driver. You tell me where you want to go — I drive and
guide. No fixed packages, no groups of strangers, no rushing through a checklist.
Maximum three people per group. I can take you island-wide, including the east
coast.
What I actually show people
Of everything I take people to, Hikkaduwa is the one I love most. It's where
I grew up. I know every stretch of the reef, every good morning spot, the parts
of the coast most visitors drive straight past. Showing someone your hometown is
different from showing them somewhere you've merely visited a lot.
I believe in being here in a way that doesn't cost the places you visit.
Sri Lanka's history, its landscape, its culture — these things are worth
protecting, not just photographing. That means kadé over tourist menus, the
less-visited temple over the one on every itinerary, and treating the places
we go with the same respect I'd want people to show my home.
History and food are the two things I find myself talking about most on the
road. Sri Lanka has more history per square kilometre than most countries —
I know the stories behind the places, not just the names. And the food here
is genuinely worth understanding: what you eat at a local kadé on the coast is
nothing like what ends up on a tourist menu. I know where to take you.
