I celebrated Eid in a sandy bay in Sri Lanka, watching from the warm, shallow sea as gaggles of local Muslims in holiday mood sauntered past to congregate at the public end of the beach about half a mile away. Since they looked so much more colourful, picturesque and exotic than the tourists in the security-guarded enclave where I was, I thought I’d wander down to take a few snaps.
Having just finished Ramadan, they were all very excited — the young men especially. Suddenly, as if from nowhere, a group of dark-skinned boys with wispy beards, bare-chested but in long trousers, had surrounded me. ‘Selfie!’ one of them said — the new universal word. So we put our arms round one another’s shoulders and smiled for the phone cameras. Sweet kids, but for just a second they had given me quite a turn.
As I headed deeper into their territory, this discomfiture grew. Most of the women wore traditional local dresses — bright fabric with lots of red and orange and pink; no headscarves — but here and there you could see the beginnings of a trend towards more austere, Middle Eastern-style dress. Girls in veils sat gazing modestly into the sand. An intense youth dressed all in white like a cleric strode past with a superior air as if he had higher things on his mind than beach frivolity.
Once I’d retreated back to the safety of my hotel, I was disappointed to notice how relieved I felt. This is very unlike me. In the past, I’ve always been one of those travellers on a perpetual quest for the ‘real’ wherever: forever shunning my sanitised, poncy tourist zones in search of ‘the place where the locals go to eat’ and other bracingly authentic experiences.
Comments
Join the debate for just £1 a month
Be part of the conversation with other Spectator readers by getting your first three months for £3.
UNLOCK ACCESS Just £1 a monthAlready a subscriber? Log in