Jungle Cruise

Sirisoma peers through binoculars for bird life. Next to him is our wonderful guide Chandima, who in normal weeks work as the reporting officer here. And next to me is Sumedha, the team leader for our community tourism program. Photo: Thatcher Cook for Mercy Corps

There are few better ways to end a hot, humid day in southern Sri Lanka than a breeze-filled river cruise. Especially one loaded with colorful birds, a swarm of bats and the occasional monkey sighting.

A big part of our post-tsunami rebuilding work here in Hambantota District is promoting tourism. From training a group of jeep safari drivers in nearby Yala National Park to costuming traditional dancers now dancing for hotel guests, we've supported a slew of projects to lure tourists to this largely overlooked stretch of coastline.

And because we're trying to rebuild the industry above and beyond what it was before, these efforts are perhaps the best example of our commitment to "build back better" after the tsunami.

So today, a little before 4 p.m., we pulled up to a rickety boathouse and a couple of small motorboats moored to a floating dock. It's there where we met 51-year-old Sirisoma Edirishinha. He's the driving force behind the all-volunteer Walawe River Eco Tourist Association, which is helping preserve the region's fragile ecosystem by showcasing it to tourists.

We talked briefly on shore, then continued once we'd shoved off in the 10-person motorboat, navigating a fairly narrow river lined with mangroves. Vine-covered trees filled both banks. Our conversation was interrupted frequently by animal sightings, beginning with a family of gray langur monkeys rustling in the branches. Sirisoma handed me a pair of Nikon binoculars so I could get a closer look.

Sirisoma told me his interest in preserving the region's ecosystem dates to well before the tsunami. By the time the wave came ashore, he'd already launched a conservation group to protect the area from turtle-egg poachers, mangrove harvesters and villagers killing wildlife for sport.

But after the tsunami snuffed out not only lives but livelihoods, he also wanted to contribute jobs to the area's revitalization. "I realized we needed to think about tourism and environmental protection together."

As we headed downstream, someone would spot a new bird every minute or so. Blue-and-green parakeets. Long-necked Indian darters. White-bellied sea eagles. Sirisoma knew all of them. At one point, we rounded a bend in the river and the noise of our motor rousted several hundred flying fox bats from the trees. They flew away shrieking.

We scared these fruit bats out of their slumber. Photo: Thatcher Cook for Mercy Corps

Mercy Corps helped Sirisoma launch this jungle cruise. Before he was introduced to us by a local government official, he'd taken boat tours in two well-visited wetlands and nature preserves near Colombo and Galle — two of Sri Lanka's most visited cities — to get a sense of the possibilities. "At that point, we didn't necessarily have a plan, but we knew what our needs were."

Sirisoma said Mercy Corps filled those needs by providing a boat, an engine, life jackets and other equipment. "But more importantly," he added, "they helped us understand what ecotourism is all about." For example, we paid for him to attend a government-sponsored class in ecotourism and sent him and others on a trip to Laos, where he paddled the Mekong Delta.

He said the Mercy Corps-provided boat we rode in made its maiden voyage about eight months ago. Since then it's ferried Sri Lankan tourists as well as visitors from Russia, France, Greece and Canada to a stretch of sand where the river meets the ocean, about a little more than two miles from where we started.

That's where we disembarked and took in the scenery. Huge Indian Ocean waves crashed into the beach, sending sea spray into our faces. Fisherman cast their lines into the ocean. Priests from a hilltop temple in view climbed down and bathed in the river. An archeological dig that has uncovered 5,000-year-old skeletons lay just over the hill.

It was easy to understand the trip's potential. And I knew what Sirisoma had meant when he described how taking other people's boat tours had steeled his resolve. "We realized we had just as many birds and just as many mangroves as they did. We had a lot to offer. We came back and realized what a treasure trove we were sitting on."

Mercy Corps is helping make sure the treasure doesn't stay hidden.

Take a twilight cruise on the mangrove-filled Walawe River and you're sure to see langur monkeys, peacocks, blue-and-green parakeets, long-necked Indian darters and white-bellied sea eagles. We helped a group of local environmentalists start this boat tour to bolster ecotourism. Photo: Thatcher Cook for Mercy Corps