Best Ceylon Podcasts (2026)

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The Earthen Dark w/ Brad Kelly 1:20:35

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6h ago1:20:35

1:20:35

Brad Kelly, of the Method and Madness podcast, returns to talk about his new book, The Earthen Dark. It's a work of weird fiction set in a sewer. Turns out, this is the perfect place to set such a tale. We talked about why subterranean places are so spooky, the near and far alien of weird fiction, the Glass Bead Game and LLMs, the effect of having …

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Wicked: For Good feat Josh Feye 1:10:45

18d ago1:10:45

1:10:45

Send us a text Josh from the Dionysian Dream joins me once more to discuss Wicked! This time, we are looking at the sequel to the 2024 movie, Wicked: For Good. We chat about the film, the changes between the stage show and the movie version, the new songs, and why Wicked isn't just for the girls and gays. Follow Josh on X: https://x.com/tragic_frui…

1
Utter Goodness w/ Audrey Lee 1:15:15

16d ago1:15:15

1:15:15

Utter Goodness is an upcoming short story collection written by Audrey Lee and published by Farthest Heaven. Its thirteen stories are lovely character studies, various faces of that peculiarly American form of cultural maximalism, and each rendered in very lithe prose. There's a kinda extemporising quality to the writing here, if one could extempor…

1
Flow My Tears, the Policeman Said feat. Rare Candy 1:59:24

22d ago1:59:24

1:59:24

Send us a text This is part 2 of our Philip K. Dick collaboration with the Rare Candy podcast. Head over to their feed for part 1 (https://open.spotify.com/show/2cXVcvC3G13PGUuYMVLGZb), where we cover The Three Stigmata of Palmer Eldritch (1965), before joining us here for the continuation of "Dick Week" as we discuss Flow My Tears, the Policeman S…

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The Jungle Spice Garden 1:55:36

1M ago1:55:36

1:55:36

Field guide; saga; pharmacy; pantry - this memoir of the Spice Garden at The Flame Tree Estate and Hotel in the jungle northwest of Kandy confirms that most elemental of Sri Lankan horticultural truths – that plants – all 7,500 of them found here – divide into just three categories. They are medicinal. They are edible. Or they are useless. Had we k…

1
Inside Kandy: A Guide for Curious Visitors 1:09:18

1M ago1:09:18

1:09:18

Proper guidebooks to Kandy lay out, in fine anatomical detail, the history, economy, and topography of the place, its sites and services listed in a proper, functioning order. Sadly, this book does not do that. It is an improper guide, the documentation of a personal quest (sometimes a struggle) to understand a little of what really makes Kandy, Ka…

1
The Great Dynasty: The Story Of The Kings Who Made Sri Lanka 2:04:10

1M ago2:04:10

2:04:10

Sri Lanka’s first recorded monarch founded a dynasty that would last over 600 years. Expelled from either Bengal or Gujarat (scholars argue, as scholars do) by his father, Prince Vijaya, the founding father of an eponymous royal family, arrived on the island in 543 BCE, his landing kicking off recorded Singhala history, despite the first 100 years …

1
The Seven Wonders of Ancient Sri Lanka 40:55

1M ago40:55

40:55

Despite their iconic status, the original seven wonders of the ancient world fall short compared to the seven wonders of ancient Lanka, the subject of this podcast. The world’s first Seven Wonders were assembled in the 1st century BCE by the historian Diodorus of Sicily, with help from Herodotus, who began the tally 400 years earlier. Their list, f…

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Sun Kings: The Story of Sri Lanka's Icarus Dynasty 1:30:12

1M ago1:30:12

1:30:12

Far into the north of Sri Lanka, forty kilometres from Anuradhapura to the south, and fifty more to the western seaboard, lie the ruins of a shrivelled reservoir - Kuda Vilach Chiya. The tank is close to some of the country’s most iconic and mythical sites, including the landing place of Prince Vijay, paterfamilias of the nation, the palace of his …

1
The Jungle Hotel 34:38

1M ago34:38

34:38

Encounters at the Jungle Hotel is a behind-the-scenes look at Sri Lanka’s Flame Tree Estate & Hotel. It starts, of course, with a welcome. And thanks for coming our way; most of the readers of this booklet will no doubt be our guests. Whatever else is happening in the world, here at least there is a cake for tea; birdsong from dawn to dusk; and fro…

1
And That's How It All Began: Sri Lanka 1:01:28

1M ago1:01:28

1:01:28

It took a refugee from Nazi Germany, with an interest in economics and Buddhism, to note the singular connection between two of the most apparent characteristics that distinguish Sri Lanka. “Small,” remarked E. F. Schumacher in his eponymous book in 1973, “is beautiful.” It was economics, rather than Sri Lanka, that Schumacher had in mind, but, as …

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A Visitor’s Guide to Galagedera 50:39

1M ago50:39

50:39

And we start with a little bit of retail therapy, which will take you down one of the world’s busiest high streets. And if you wonder about the example chosen – which you may, at first glance, consider eccentric, situated as it is in small village in the middle of an island of barely 20 million people in one of the least visited countries in the wo…

1
A Garden Companion To The Flame Tree Estate & Hotel 41:52

1M ago41:52

41:52

“Once, when I was young and true,” wrote Dorothy Parker in 1926, “Someone left me sad; Broke my brittle heart in two; And that is very bad.” Fortunately, an early broken heart was not to be my fate. Gardens were. Plants. And especially trees. For it was gardens, not love, that occupied my childish imaginings. Gardens, I concluded, were all variants…

1
Wicked, Nefarious, Iniquitous: Sri Lanka’s Most Notorious Kings & Queens 48:27

1M ago48:27

48:27

The awful thing about wickedness is just how interesting it is. Kind and benevolent rulers; admirable warrior kings; even the fumbling but kindly nice ones who build hospitals and live blameless lives – they all pale into guilt-wrenching insignificance when set before a list saturated by the sinful, iniquitous, and depraved. And in this respect, Sr…

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The Great Conundrum: The Ceylon Press History of Sri Lanka 1 21:35

1M ago21:35

21:35

It took a refugee from Nazi Germany, with an interest in economics and Buddhism, to note the singular connection between two of the most apparent characteristics that distinguish Sri Lanka. “Small,” remarked E. F. Schumacher in his eponymous book in 1973, “is beautiful.” It was economics, rather than Sri Lanka, that Schumacher had in mind, but, as …

1
The Island That Floated Away: The Ceylon Press History of Sri Lanka 2 21:43

1M ago21:43

21:43

Rusty, derelict, and irresistibly optically challenged, the old Talaimannar Lighthouse is a gratifyingly improbable key to unlocking the start of Sri Lanka’s recorded history. It presents an even more unlikely clue to explain the profound differences the island shows compared to the rest of the world. Heraclitus, the weeping philosopher, with his f…

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Voyaging to Wonderland: The Ceylon Press History of Sri Lanka 3 19:34

1M ago19:34

19:34

Adam’s Bridge was a bridge crying out for repair, even before the great storm of 1480 shattered it forever. Unpredictable and uneven, sailing had long been the better option. But for Sri Lanka’s first settlers – who had still to master boats – a short walk from India was all it took. And walking was what they did: Palaeolithic and later Mesolithic …

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The Island That Cultivated Philosophy: The Ceylon Press History of Sri Lanka 4 21:19

1M ago21:19

21:19

Sri Lanka’s first recorded monarch founded a dynasty that would last over 600 years. Expelled from either Bengal or Gujarat (scholars argue, as scholars do) by his father, Prince Vijaya, the founding father of an eponymous royal family, arrived on the island in 543 BCE, his landing kicking off recorded Singhala history, despite the first 100 years …

1
Dancing on Knives: The Ceylon Press History of Sri Lanka 5 21:40

1M ago21:40

21:40

“If I want a crown,” remarked Peachey, hero of Kipling’s Man Who Would Be King, and unexpected alter ego of Prince Vijiya, Sri Lanka’s first monarch, “I must go and hunt it for myself.” If Peachey’s motivation was glory and riches, plain and straightforward, Vijaya’s was about raw survival, dodging assassinations and evading parental disapproval. I…

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Heaven on Earth: The Ceylon Press History of Sri Lanka 6 23:24

1M ago23:24

23:24

In the previous 100 years, Sri Lanka’s little Vijayan kingdom twice risked absolute oblivion, courtesy of its carefree kings. But twice too, in the following 170 years, the self-same state would step up and prosper beyond all expectations, thanks to two other kings, both innate masters of nation-building. For Pandu Kabhaya and his grandson, Devanam…

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Conquered: The Ceylon Press History of Sri Lanka 7 21:43

1M ago21:43

21:43

Good advice is often nearer to hand than even the most foolish leader can imagine. Or be minded to seek. One hundred and fifty years earlier, and six thousand six hundred and one kilometres away, Thucydides, whose work, The Peloponnesian War, set such standards for history as to anticipate every conceivable future military and political ploy, had t…

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Merry-Go-Round: The Ceylon Press History of Sri Lanka 8 20:53

1M ago20:53

20:53

If ever there was a king who was entitled to get very cross indeed, it was Dutugemunu, one of the island’s standout sovereigns. Known, not unjustifiably as “The Great,” Dutugemunu was to rescue his car crash of a dynasty, only to watch it (albeit from the life thereafter) speed off the proverbial royal road yet again, and with such casual ingratitu…

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Bloodbath: The Ceylon Press History of Sri Lanka 9 19:42

1M ago19:42

19:42

It took 128 years for the last Vijayan kings to travel the final road to oblivion, years that made the mafia tales of the Prohibition era or a Shakespearean tragedy seem tame. But travel them they did – and with unforgettable horror – all eighteen monarchs, of whom at least two-thirds were murdered by their successors, plunging the country into yet…

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The Kingdom That Walked On Water: The Ceylon Press History of Sri Lanka 10 19:00

1M ago19:00

19:00

Far into the north of Sri Lanka, forty kilometres from Anuradhapura to the south, and fifty more to the western seaboard, lie the ruins of a shrivelled reservoir - Kuda Vilach Chiya. The tank is close to some of the country’s most iconic and mythical sites, including the landing place of Prince Vijay, paterfamilias of the nation, the palace of his …

1
The Guardians: The Ceylon Press History of Sri Lanka 11 23:36

1M ago23:36

23:36

Often, it seems, history hits you like an unyielding celebrity, all dressed up, very loud and awfully important. Even though, for the most part, it is much more like a recluse, willing to surrender but the barest of hints as to its very existence. And though history pretends that everything about it is big – its rulers, events, structures, trends –…

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A Murder of Kings: The Ceylon Press History of Sri Lanka 12 21:44

1M ago21:44

21:44

Two periods of state-sponsored homicidal self-indulgence were now to grip the kingdom. The first killings broke out in 195 CE, and the second in 248 CE. Both were leavened by brief moments of stability that, with seconds to spare, prevented the country from collapsing altogether and gave it a modest but life-affirming breathing space. Such pirouett…

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Last Chance Saloon: The Ceylon Press History of Sri Lanka 13 28:02

1M ago28:02

28:02

It is unnecessary to employ the mind reading capabilities of Descartes or The Amazing Kreskin to discern how Sri Lanka might have reacted to Gotabhaya taking the throne in 253 CE. After decades of Lambakarna kings, many eagerly pious, ruling with unremitting incompetence, Gotabhaya was nothing less than a shock. After all, he had been one of the ve…

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Encounters At The Jungle Hotel 26:59

1M ago26:59

26:59

Encounters at the Jungle Hotel is a behind-the-scenes look at Sri Lanka’s Flame Tree Estate & Hotel. It starts, of course, with a welcome. And thanks for coming our way, for most of the listeners of this will no doubt be our guests. Whatever else is happening in the world, here at least there is a cake for tea; birdsong from dawn to dusk; and from …

1
Eminent Plebs 29:42

1M ago29:42

29:42

Sri Lanka, like ancient Rome, has strict - albeit invisible - notions of caste and class. And class, not being exclusively human, is no less apparent within its smaller mammalian world – its rodents, and rodent-like cousins: its rats, shrews, mice, and squirrels. If the island’s tiny and elite mammalian senatorial class is represented by its elepha…

1
Lost in Always 18:15

1M ago18:15

18:15

The mind blanks at the glare,” wrote Philip Larkin “Not in remorse — The good not done, the love not given, time Torn off unused — nor wretchedly because An only life can take so long to climb Clear of its wrong beginnings, and may never; But at the total emptiness for ever, The sure extinction that we travel to And shall be lost in always. Not to …

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Sigiriya & The Party That Lasted 22 Years 30:13

1M ago30:13

30:13

Now regarded as little more than ruins atop a rock that offers a magnificent view, Sigiriya is undoubtedly one of ancient Asia’s Seven Great Wonders, albeit one that wears its wonders with clandestine dignity. Its moment of destruction coincides most neatly with the date most historians give for the end of the ancient world itself – 500 CE. Just 5 …

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Escape: The Sri Lankan Reading List 19:53

1M ago19:53

19:53

Stretched between the pleasure gardens of the bishops of London and the $300 million Fulham Football Club, once owned by the disgraced sexual predator Mohamed Al Fayed, Alphabet City is West London’s new Knightsbridge. From south to north, its streets are laid out with an intimidating, if inexact, alphabetical order. Its “exquisite array of Victori…

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Demon Queen: The Quest for Kuveni 25:53

1M ago25:53

25:53

The Search for Sri Lanka’s Demon Queen unpicks with the very earliest stories and places associated with Sri Lanka’s first steps as a nation, and with two particular people: Kuveni and Vijaya. The pair were the pin-up lovers of their generation, the Bonnie and Clyde, Tristan and Isolde, Tarzan, and Jane of 543 BCE. Only theirs was a more unorthodox…

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The Three "B's" of Lanka 16:57

1M ago16:57

16:57

It is all too easy to mistake what Sri Lankans might call the “Three Big B’s” for Mr Bandaranaike Senior, Mrs Bandaranaike Senior, and Mrs Bandaranaike Kumaratunga. But in fact, Sri Lanka’s Three Big B’s are not politicians. They are its bears, buffalo, and boars. And remarkably, each beast shares a close and initial affinity with those other, and …

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Deer Friends: On Safari with Sri Lanka's Deer, Ponies & Donkeys 11:07

1M ago11:07

11:07

Deer abound across Sri Lanka, some like the Ceylon Spotted Deer are increasingly vulnerable, prey to poachers and habitat loss; others – like the Barking Deer – are flourishing and present little concern to the scientists who maintain the Red List of Threatened Species. Two species are considered endemic to the island – the Ceylon Spotted Deer, the…

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Guardians Against Greed: The Mongooses Of Sri Lanka 11:26

1M ago11:26

11:26

Looking at animals from a purely Kandyan perspective, in the beginning were not early life form sponges, or even aardvarks – but mongooses. For it was, according to the best of legends, mongooses who were responsible for Kandy being built where it was. The city’s earliest history is an impossible mosaic of hearsay, myth, the odd inscription, and la…

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In Search Of The Devil Bird: Encounters with Sri Lanka’s Owls 21:23

1M ago21:23

21:23

Once upon a time, uncountable centuries ago, a woman sat down to enjoy a curry supper with her husband. With hindsight, she ought to have been more alert: after all, her husband making dinner was no usual thing. But then, nor was the curry, for nestling amongst the spices and vegetables she discovered a tiny finger. All that was left of her infant …

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The Cat’s Pyjamas: In Pursuit of Sri Lanka’s Wild Cats 17:38

1M ago17:38

17:38

Counting Sri Lanka’s wild cats is no minor feat. None of them cares to be counted, still less seen. Some have vanished; and at least one is the subject of such impassioned scientistic debate that its righteous credentials as distinct species or sub species still hang in the balance. Even so, of the many mighty mammals that once sat, enthroned, like…

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The Mermaid That Wasn’t: At Sea with Sri Lanka's Mammals 25:52

1M ago25:52

25:52

Europeans first encountered mermaids in Sri Lanka 500 years ago. Just a few decades after arriving, the Portuguese, under the command of Constantino of Braganza, a cousin of the King of Portugal, tiring of the relatively successful raids upon his fleet by the Kings of Jaffna, decided war was the best way forward. His expedition, in November 1560, r…

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Secret Kandy: The 200 Year Old War 14:29

1M ago14:29

14:29

Hills are, of course, what Kandy is celebrated for - and its most famous city-centre mountain, Bahirawa Kanda, or Gnome Mountain, is home to one of the tallest statues of Lord Buddha. It was once, more memorably, home to an atypical human sacrifice involving a lovely girl, Dingiri Menika, who lived right next to the Flame Tree Estate and Hotel in G…

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Monsoon, Magic & Money: Sri Lanka, The Spice Trade & A Jungle Garden 32:50

1M ago32:50

32:50

Field guide; saga; pharmacy; pantry - this memoir of the Spice Garden at The Flame Tree Estate and Hotel in the jungle northwest of Kandy confirms that most elemental of Sri Lankan horticultural truths – that plants – all 7,500 of them found here – divide into just three categories. They are medicinal. They are edible. Or they are useless. Had we k…

1
Shop: Retail Therapy in a Tuk Tuk 19:45

1M ago19:45

19:45

Travel down one of the world’s busiest high streets. And if you wonder about the example chosen – which you may, at first glance, consider eccentric, situated as it is in small village in the middle of an island of barely 20 million people in one of the least visited countries in the world; marvel instead - because, yes, you have come to Galagedera…

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Secret Kandy: Where The Grass Is Greener 14:03

1M ago14:03

14:03

One of Kandy’s most fantastic secrets is its nature. The city sits in a valley surrounded by five central hills, up which, like an indulgent bubble bath, buildings of later regret have begun to creep. But one side of the city remains nicely protected - UdawaththaKele Forest. Once a forest hunting reserve for the kings, it is now a magical 104-hecta…

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The Wicked Monarchs of Sri Lanka: Part 1 20:57

1M ago20:57

20:57

The awful thing about wickedness is just how interesting it is. Kind and benevolent rulers; admirable warrior kings; even the fumbling but kindly nice ones who build hospitals and live blameless lives – they all pale into guilt-wrenching insignificance when set before a list saturated by the sinful, iniquitous, and depraved. And in this respect, Sr…

1
Shangri-la: The Primates of Sri Lanka 18:46

1M ago18:46

18:46

Nearly seven million monkeys leap about Sri Lanka’s trees, the vast majority of them Toque Macaques. To these can be added a handful of lorises, their ancient and more wet-nosed primate relatives. These much-overlooked mammals of beguiling rarity and beauty have a talent for invisibility that outstrips even that of Tolkien’s Frodo when wearing The …

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The Golden Trinity: Sri Lanka’s Three Great Spices 21:57

1M ago21:57

21:57

It took just three homespun goddesses - Aglaia, Euphrosyne, and Thalia - to give their ancient Mediterranean world all the perfection it needed; its charm, beauty, and creativity. And so it is with the three great indigenous species of Sri Lanka: cinnamon, pepper, and turmeric. Native to the island, they are impossible to imagine life here without.…

1
Rambling in the Outer Gardens 19:54

1M ago19:54

19:54

Walk with me in the sprawling plantation gardens that disappear off into the jungle around Sri Lanka’s Flame Tree Estate & Hotel. This longer of the two walks, which we call THE ESTATE WALK, starts at THE PODI PATH just outside the front porch that leads into the hotel. A traditional kitchen constructed of mud and bamboo once stood on this path, ma…

1
Restore, Recover, Reboot 8:43

1M ago8:43

8:43

To borrow, at least a small part of Emma Lazarus’s famous poem: “Give me your tired, your huddled masses yearning to breathe free -" and we will do our best to help put things right, for it is a comfort to know that it is of little matter whether the glass is half full or half empty. Thankfully, the glass is refillable. And fill it we do at The Fla…

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The Taste Trade: Sri Lanka’s Merchant Spices 30:14

1M ago30:14

30:14

On the distant streets of the Old Bailey in London stands F. W. Pomeroy's famous 1906 statue of Justice hanging above the entrance to Central Criminal Court. The vast and gilded Amazonian holds in one hand the sword of justice and in the other the finely balanced scales of justice. And it is in thinking how Sri Lanka’s spice history might best fit …

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Secret Kandy: Five Forgotten Stories 21:32

1M ago21:32

21:32

An arc of land that fans out north of Kandy connected to the ancient Anuradhapuran kings and their successors, before passing into the control of the Kandyan kingdom, whose own borders ebbed and flowed in response to European invasions. This neglected northern section of the Kandyan kingdom centred on three provinces: Anuradhapura in the far north,…