Sri Lanka – Land of Gems Mines

After landing late in the night, we spent the evening at the Goldi Sands beach front hotel in Negombo, just north of Colombo. Early the next day, we met our driver Joseph and started our journey to the gem fields in the interior of the island. Our destination was Ratnapura…the gem capital of Sri Lanka.

For centuries Sri Lanka has been providing gems, especially sapphires, to the world. Coming in a variety of colors from yellow, green, white, colorless, pink, orange, brown, and purple, blue is the most popular color. The red variety is a ruby. Sapphires may not be a girl’s best friend, but they are the stuff upon which legends are built.

Sapphires have long been considered powerful talismans protecting owners from sickness and evils. The gem has also been regarded as a symbol of truth and sincerity. It is said that the luster of a sapphire would dim if worn by an unfaithful husband or wife. Ancient Persians believed that the Earth rested on a blue sapphire and its reflection colored the sky.

We had visions of grandeur, therefore, as we headed along the bumpy roads to the gem mines. Somewhere among these hills of Sri Lanka the famed mammoth “Star of India” blue sapphire was pulled from the earth. Our tour of the gem mines in Ratnapura revealed to us not the glamour of the world of sapphires, but rather the hardscrabble realities of the gem business.

Scattered in old unkempt, overgrown fields, the mines appear as they have been since the times of King Solomon. The gem mines are actually “gem pits” about 15 ft square with shafts running 30 ft deep. Aside from the introduction of gasoline engine water pumps, not much as changed in the exploration for gems.

Stooped miners extract and wash mountains of earth for hours each day in muddy waters in search of small gem fragments. Three or four pebble-laden baskets may yield a single small gem. Yet despite the poverty of the miners, there is the potential to find another Star of India in these muddy pits. Guards dutifully slumber nightly in nearby shacks. Fortified with ample stocks of whisky and cigarettes, the guards stand ready to thwart any interloper intent upon washing mountains of muddy earth by moonlight in search of the well-hidden gems.

From the gem mines in the interior of the island, we started another long bumpy ride to the southern coast of Sri Lanka. Our evening’s destination was the Fort Printers Hotel inside the old walled Dutch fort in Galle (pronounced “gaul’). The hotel and the old fort provided a magical adventure…where the stuff of legends comes true.Publish