The French freestyle windsurfer Pierre Garambois and his friends Baptiste Mure, Colin Leclercq, Thibault Raudet, Lyne and Jonas Marpot travelled to Sri Lanka last June. They windsurfed in the well known lagoon of Kalpitiya, which is located on the western side of Sri Lanka and discovered the lifestyle of the island. Fortunately the people in Sri Lanka live in peace again, after they saw a horrible civil war for 26 years long, from 1983 till 2009 with 80000 to 100000 deaths estimated. The Tamil Tigers were fighting for an independent country against the troops of the government, exactly in the area of Kalpitiya, too.
Sri Lanka is now more safe for tourists and the tourism returns to the island. Watersport enthusiasts are slowly discovering the tropical region, too, but Sri Lanka is still not the most known place for windsurfing, yet. Kalpitiya offers the best freestyle spot with a huge lagoon. Everyone, who is looking for waves, should travel to Sri Lanka’s eat coast to Arugam Bay during the summer months.
“The wind statistics were so good and constant. We knew we would catch up some wind for sure. And that’s what happened in the end: the wind blew every day in this corner of the country! It was pretty light though: 15/18 knots, pretty gusty. But from what we heard, we were a bit early in the season, as it’s usually closer to 20/25 knots! Still, we could could grab our booms almost every day for two weeks, most of the time with 5.2m/5.0m! Anyway, when we planned our trip to Sri Lanka, we knew this was not only about windsurfing. The culture of this country is so far from ours, that it’s an out of common trip, something that sticks in your mind for a long time. Their conception of life, death, property, food, family, religion is so different, that any moment you get to share with someone is richly rewarding and intense. It shows you that our “Western” concerns really need to be put into perspective sometimes… Besides the cultural side, we had the chance to spend two weeks surrounded with colorful beautiful landscapes. Some long dry sandy beaches on the coast mixed up with lush rainforest in the mountains… the diversity of this country is simply gorgeous. From every point of view, this trip is one of the best we’ve done so far with the boys of La BAR. A great adventure shared with friends! We really hope the video shows the amazing moments we spent over there. If you guys wanna try a different windsurfing trip to experience something new, just go to Sri Lanka!” Pierre Garambois & La Bar team
“Their conception of life, death, property, food, family, religion is so different,.. ” did you talk about this with someone from sri lanka or is it just the global surfers opinion to say for a Video introduction
It’s not a “global surfers opinion for a video introduction”, or else i would say that for any country like this and it would be dishonest and useless. We really talked to the people we met (whenever it was possible, because they rarely speak English in that region of the country). We really tried to understand their culture, how they live, how much they earn a month, how much you need to live decently, how many religions they have in the country (and what’s the proportions), what’s the relationship with their family, what was the last war about, what’s their… Read more »
Great feelings in this video. Thank you C7 for also sharing this kind of different movie!
Highlight!
great!!!
Great feeling! Very human video! I voted 10, but it scored 8 for some reason.