Matt’s Mat

When we left Sri Lanka a few months ago, we had to part company with a trusted family friend: Matt’s Mat.

Some history is necessary here I suppose:

Matt is a really friendly French guy that we met in early summer of 2023 at Surfpoint Sri Lanka. He is a professional musician and runs a truly original and cool business renting original retro 80’s ski apparel to people to wear while skiing in the Alps. All around a great guy, great conversationalist, and a fun kiter to hang out with.

When he left Surfpoint, he asked us if we would like his yoga mat that he had been using as he was unable to take it back to France on a flight. We decided to keep the mat with us on the off chance that I might ever, some day in the far far future, decide to do some yoga.

That yoga mat became the most utilitarian tool that we owned for a while, and it was a constant companion and multi-tool on all of our tuk tuk adventures.

It even had a couple of adventures of its own along the way…

Here it is: Matt’s Mat.

This is, of course, after all of our adventures around Sri Lanka. Matt, being a proper French gentleman, did not leave us the mat in this disconsolate state. That was on us.

Matt’s Mat was, however an adventure mat at heart, and had a great story for every hole and tear and crease he bore. He was punctured in a thousand places on the day that he valiantly fought to defend the tuk tuk (and our two-kilo bag of rambutans) from a pack of marauding macaque monkeys while we were off enjoying lunch in a beach-side restaurant in Trincomalee. I still have no explanation for it, but the monkeys chewed on poor Matt’s Mat for what must have been an hour, because he was full of thousands of fang-holes. I found him out in the jungle about fifty meters from the tuk tuk, still valiantly fighting off the hordes of mischief makers, doing his duty to the death (he did survive that mission, though, and went on to survive many more).

There is oil in there, and road rash as well, from flying off the top of the tuk tuk when his careless owners forgot him up there after taking off the surf boards. He bore all these injuries and injustices with nary a complaint, and with more than a hero’s share of grace and courage (even when he was nearly run over by a high-speed danger bus).

He was the constant companion in our tuk tuk travels, always back there, stoic and unflappable as ever.

There he is waiting patiently in Kalpitiya, peeking out from behind the back seat, on guard against herds of marauding wild donkeys.

And again at Point Pedro, the Northernmost point in all of Sri Lanka, still at his post in the back, diligent as ever to protect us from the flocks of aerial dive bombing crows (he was hit a few times, but that just added to his overall scruffily lovable demeanor).

Matt’s Mat was a dedicated and hard worker, with a creative outlook towards problem solving and multi-functionality. He was the right mat for the job in almost every circumstance.

Here was Matt’s Mat at what was his primary responsibility: Protecting the surfboards from damage while tied onto the top of trusty old Enzo the tuk tuk. He did many, many hours of this duty without complaint or failure.

Another of his primary duties was to be squished in and under all of our baggage in the back of the tuk tuk as a rain shield to keep our bags dry.This was the reason for several permanent creases that I could never quite straighten out.

Here you can see the trusty little guy squished, folded, and creased in there, under all our tons of gear. Again, never a word of complaint. And he was brave enough to do a really sketchy ocean crossing in a tuk tuk on a tiny fishing boat. He was a brave mat.

All I can say is: Thank you Matt, for leaving us a trusted and valiant travel companion. We will miss Matt’s Mat on the rest of our travels around the world.