Sri Lanka – The Perfect Adventure Motorcycling Destination

Sri Lanka, Ceylon, Serendip – This emerald island nation nestled between India and Southeast Asia in the Indian Ocean has carried many names over the past 2,000 years. Sri Lanka, the country’s name since the 1970’s, seems to exemplify its characteristics better than the others: ‘Sri’, meaning ‘resplendent’ and ‘Lanka’, the Sinhalese word for ‘island’ and you know exactly what you are getting.

The first time you get on a bike and start to make your way around this island paradise, one specific question flashes through your mind: why did it take so long to do this? Forget about the stunning beauty of the place, the myriad cultural icons, the fabulous food or the sublime beaches because I will talk about these in a second: It’s the endless, perfectly maintained winding roads through national parks, tea plantations and mountain jungles that places Sri Lanka in the highest echelons of adventure motorcycling bliss. Now for the breakdown:

• The Beaches
  

Lest we forget, we are on holiday here and holiday for most people usually includes some beach time. It is here that we switch off and soak in the acoustic accompaniment of lapping waves and a good dose of sunshine. Sri Lanka has 1,342 kilometres or 832 miles of coastline and, no matter where you go, you will be hard pressed to find one with a crowd. Spare the odd herd of wild elephants (yes, really) most beaches are yours to explore. And because the country is a mere 550 miles or 880 km from the equator, the clear blue Indian Ocean surf surrounding your feet is warm and inviting.

• The Mountains
  

As soon as you feel the equatorial heat making you feel a bit grumpy, it’s time to head to the mountains. The Knuckles Range, a UNESCO World Heritage Site in the country’s core snakes us up to 1,200 metres or 4,000 feet and enshrouds us in a beautiful mist that turns the scene into a fabulous water colour at sunset. Up here you will find richly architected tea plantations to call home for a night or two while you take an evening meal of locally sourced Sri Lanka cuisine on a veranda.

• The Food
  

As you would expect, the dishes are awash in the local flavours of the tropics: Coconut, limes, seafood, an array of spices, dals and rice, whether enjoyed at a roadside stall or a fine restaurant in Colombo or Galle, you have to try exceptionally hard to be disappointed. Grab a cooking class on your down days and bring something truly magical home with you.

• The Wildlife
  

You don’t have to wait to be on safari to start spotting the incredible species Sri Lanka is home to. Endless winding country lanes, their boundaries strung with electric fencing, tells you you’re in elephant country. Spotting a wild elephant on a one of these roads or indeed on the side of a highway or strolling along the beach is not at all uncommon. It’s once you arrive at one the country’s many wildlife parks and refuges that the animal kingdom really comes to life: crocodiles, wild boar, deer, langurs and macaques abound and if you are really, really lucky, a leopard may cross your motorcycle’s path.

• The Roads

If all those characteristics of this exotic island are not enough for you, then there is one common denominator that binds us all: the bike and all those glorious roads. You want muddy tracks through rice paddies? Fit the knobbies and get as filthy as you like. Wide, swinging twisties more your thing? Head to the mountains and lean your way to hillstation heaven. A nice coastal jaunt as Indian Ocean breezes soothe your face? The 1,300 kilometres of coastline will ensure you never, ever run out of beach.

Don’t Think. Go.

Sri Lanka, you may have read, is in a state of turmoil right now and we sincerely hope the situation rights itself soon. But, as is often the case with the news, the images that flash across your screen seldom tell more than a tiny fraction of the real story. Sri Lanka is still fully committed to its tourism industry and, to be honest, the best thing anyone considering traveling to this part of the world should do is exactly that: Go. You will be rewarded with a nation of endless natural beauty, kind people, marvellous cuisine, and breath-taking cultural icons. And they will benefit from a much-needed resuscitation of their vital tourism industry.

I had a dream about my new Klim Badlands Pro riding suit the other night. Or maybe it was a nightmare. The Cordura and Kevlar mass had morphed into a Transformer, Artemis Prime style, and raged though our serene beachside chill spot smashing our Royal Enfield Bullets to pieces. The reality is not far from the dream. Fresh off the rack, the Klim Badlands Pro Jacket and Pants feel like they want to jump to life, swagger across the room and kick the crap out of you. They feel that tough. Putting the new set on feels like donning an exoskeleton. Bring on the battle. Sri Lankan style.

On the flight to Colombo to conduct a refreshed recce of our newest Sri Lanka tour, I am reflecting on the first recce we did there a year earlier. It wasn’t monsoon season but the island doesn’t play by those rules. Each part of the country has its own climate and the deluge followed us around like a stray dog. Every day for the first 4 days, we rode through a perpetual carwash of aquatic ferocity: knee-deep muddy rice fields, flooded village roads, angry streams – we got it all. The Italian adventure jackets we had purchased for our company for their lightness, modularity and reputation were not cutting the chutney. Water penetrated my ride pants and trickled down my legs filling up my waterproof boots over and over again. The jackets, which had the baffling design of placing the waterproofing Gore-Tex layer in the inside of the jacket rather than as its external layer, swelled up to twice their dry weight with water. It was no catastrophe: the rain was warm and we were doing the thing we love most: Creating a new ride experience. But ultimately, this gear that we loved on our drier rides in Nepal, Rajasthan and Ladakh were a ‘big no’ for southern India and Sri Lanka. 

Cue to something new.

I have been using Klim Mojave pants for some time. They are a simple shell and are great for Mojave, Thar and Sahara Deserts, albeit with my own armour. I have also loved the summer and autumn season gloves from the same maker. Great and great. But the foray into a complete suit was new ground for me.

My first impression suiting up for the ride from Colombo up the Indian Ocean coast to Kalpitiya was ‘wow, that’s a lot of pockets.’ 18, to be exact. At one point I tried to fish out my passport to check into our hotel only to find that I could feel it but somehow couldn’t get to it. Like trying to figure out which of my 4 smoke detectors is making the bloody low battery chirpy noise. Of course, I can’t toss Klim a foul flag on the design. I am sure that, with time, my jacket’s new Dewey Decimal System will take shape and every pocket will have it purpose.

Here is what I loved, and what did not.

• Ventilation – Galle, Sri Lanka’s UNESCO World Heritage city, sits a mere 440 miles / 700 km north of the equator so, accordingly, I feared I was going to dissolve inside the suit in the sweltering heat. Not so. Maybe they designed it in a wind tunnel, but once you get moving, I stayed as cool as deep sea cod. There are 8 (!) vents in the jacket alone and they work exceedingly well. Stop for a tea break along a jungle road, however, and you’ll be popping popcorn in there in minutes.
  
  
• Pockets – As mentioned, there are many, many pockets. Too many. When you inventory all the stuff you normally cram into a suit before hitting the adventure trail, the list is finite: Passport, wallet, sunglasses, revolver, currency, phone, lip balm, keys. So 8, maybe 10 max would do the trick. 16 is just showing off. There’s even a jacket pocket at the back above your waistline that reminds me of a game pocket from a hunting jacket. I did slice a 2-metre viper in two with my wheels on a narrow rice paddy track (still feel sorry for that guy) that I theoretically could have snacked on later, but short of that I have no idea what to do with the game pocket.  Maps perhaps? But who uses those anymore?
  
  One other point: all pockets are not created equal. I love the inside jacket pockets lined with armour to (perhaps) protect your iPhone when you face plant. But even more so, I love the front breast key pocket. Never in the history of human civilisation has a wiser pocket been devised.
  
  
• Aesthetic – I am short and for some reason wearing a clunky suit tends to make me look like a Mighty Morphin Power Ranger. I don’t know if it’s the cut, the design or my stellar physique, but this suit did not make me look like a Morphin. Or at least I don’t think I did.
  
  On the negative spin, with the exception of ‘Peyote – Potter’s Clay’ and ‘Stealth Black’, (a big no-no in hot South Asia where we run our tours) all the other colour configurations look like they were randomly selected from a pile of crayons.
  
  
• Armour – I didn’t crash but there is CE Level 2 armour everywhere. The pants did shield me from viper and dog bites but otherwise, the armour went untested. My only complaint, and I hope the nice folks in Idaho are listening, is that weird tailbone plate in the pants. Ever throw on your jeans fresh from the dryer and realise there’s a sock inside along for the ride on your backside? That’s the feeling the buttplate gives. Sitting on rocks or logs or hard plastic stools as you do during these rides places unpleasant (best word I could find) pressure on the very bone it is meant to protect. Maybe my tail is longer than most, but I might banish the buttplate and take my chances.
  

• Weather-Proofing – For the first time ever, I prayed to be blasted with a storm. Unlike last year’s monsoon recce, this one was brilliant sunshine throughout so could not assess the suites watertight-edness. But with most pockets and their zippers being thoroughly treated and the material Gor-Texed from top to bottom, I have faith that I’d have been dry as a martini.
  
  
• Biomechanics – Sounds esoteric, but it’s important. The Klim is as flexible as a suit of armour when unpacked. I fretted that trying to throw my leg over the saddle would be like riding in a body cast. It wasn’t. After throwing the jacket to the dirt like a spoiled child at every tea break for a couple of days, it was as supple as my granddaddy’s baseball glove. In no time, I was doing motorcycle yoga like a guru.
  
  
• Hydration – Wow, really? We often ride with Camelback hydration packs Rajasthan, Nepal, Kerala and Ladakh. I never liked them because they obscure the embroidered ‘Two Wheeled Expeditions’ logo on the back of jackets, stitching we paid a tidy sum for. The Badlands jacket has a built in (my partner Josh had a mind melt event about this) hydration pack pocket in the back of the jacket, MotoGP style, with pre-built tube routes to get the water to your mouth. Wow. So much wow.

Is the Klim Badlands Pro suit the best adventure riding apparel in the history of the universe? I was going to say no, that’s not possible, until superb customer service and a ‘you thresh it, we refresh it’ policy pushed me over the edge. The answer you seek is yes. Yes, this this is the best adventure motorcycling suit ever conceived. However, (and this is a mighty however) it is really expensive. At USD2000 for the pants and jacket, you might think this decision a bit mental. But if you run adventure tours for a living, or adventure riding is a massive part of your life, or you just have hundos lying all over the floor, you are going to find it tough to buy a better exoskeleton to project your hide from the battle outside than Badlands.