Visiting Sri Lanka with Gluten Intolerance

Sri Lanka is a beautiful country having lots to offer: beaches, mountains, natural beauty, wildlife, flora funa, and amazing cultural heritage with UNESCO sites like Sigiriya.

Elephants (@pen_ash from Pixabay)

Recently one of my colleagues, who has a gluten intolerance, visited Sri Lanka. She had got Google translate to translate some sentences to Sinhala so that she could take cards that said what she could and could not eat. She brought them to me to check whether they conveyed the meaning. Google translate has done a decent job, however, the translations were in 'written language' not the language people talk day-to-day. So I modified them a little bit and thought I'd share them here, in case anyone else travelling to Sri Lanka may find them useful.

In Sri Lanka, I have not seen shops actively catering to various food intolerance - may be due to the low demand?

My colleague is back safe and sound and have not have had any problems with food and she thanked me for the translations. So they have been proven ;)

The statements my colleague wanted me to translate are here:

• I would like plain boiled rice please. Talking with her what she actually wanted to say was "Give me plain rice portion. Not fried rice" so I translated that to Sinhala
  මට නිකං බත් (ප්ලේන් රයිස්) එකක් දෙන්න. ෆ්රයිඩ් රයිස් එපා.
• I cannot eat any wheat flour or I will get sick. In Sri Lanka, people generally call wheat flour as bread flour and some people may not even recognise what wheat flour is. So this was my translation for her.
  මටතිරිඟු පිටි (පාන් පිටි) වලින් හදපු කෑම කන්න බැහැ, කෑවොත් මම ලෙඩ වෙනවා.
• I cannot eat any bread or I will get sick. Here I added flat bread, which is popular in Sri lanka as these are also made of wheat flour.
  මට පාන්, රොටි කන්න බැහැ, කෑවොත් මම ලෙඩ වෙනවා
• I cannot eat any soy sauce, barley or vinegar either.මට සෝයා සෝස්, බාර්ලි හෝ විනාකිරි කන්න බැහැ.
• Does this food have any wheat flour in it?
  මේ කෑමෙ තිරිඟු පිටි (පාන් පිටි) තිබේද?

I really hope these will be of use to someone else too.