Background: Along my healing journey, I received treatment at Dissanayake Ayurvedic Hospital in Galle, Sri Lanka, a government-run, pay-what-you-can facility.

I attended this hospital for Ayurveda treatments for some weeks during Dec. 2017-Jan 2018 and was treated by a kind practitioner called Ruwan. I also met with a wise Doctor who recommended I do a longer in-patient Panchakarma program here, but… some life situations changed and i didn’t do the program. I saw the rooms and talked to the doctors and while it was very spartan and not cozy, the staff seemed to be very intent on their practice.

Routine: Mr. Prem dropped me off via his Tuk-tuk (he introduced me to the facility in the first place), i then went to a window to announce myself (to everyone’s great surprise!) and then sat in the waiting area. Mr. Ruwan would come back from lunch, i would strip down to underwear and lay down on a wooden table (covered with a vinyl sheet) in a shared room with folks coming and going for massage with loads and loads of oil(note: i wisely wore the same sarong and linen shirt each day as the treatments were very oily). He identified the pro-lapsed discs in my spine and worked on those areas especially. The treatments were daily (except Sunday) for about an hour.

I paid them some cash either directly to the practitioner or into a “donation” box in the lobby area. I wanted to ensure i was demonstrating generosity and gratitude, so i wrote them a letter to bridge the language barrier (the Drs were more skilled at English as i did not possess Sinhala language skills) to ensure I was paying an appropriate amount and behaving according to the customs of the facility. The letter is poorly typed but that’s another story.