A couple told Ben Fogle how they escaped the London rat race to live off the grid on a mountaintop in Sri Lanka.
Anke Dias Weerasinha, 47, and her husband Naveen Dias Weeransinha, 36, revealed how being constantly plagued by anxiety and panic attacks prompted them to abandon their city hospitality careers and focus on building something closer to nature .
The couple now run The Cliff Lodge, a remote glamping experience, since packing up and leaving the UK in 2017.
Its impressive accommodation project, consisting of four glass capsules, takes guests on a journey to the Haputale mountain range, past tea plantations and through the Foot Hills of the famous Lipton Seat. Visitors are invited to reconnect with nature as there is no hot water, electricity or gas.
The couple told Channel 5’s New Lives in the Wild, which airs tonight at 9pm, how they built it all up after years of working on the corporate ladder.
A couple told Ben Fogle how they escaped the London rat race to live off the grid on a mountaintop in Sri Lanka. In the photo: Anke Dias Weerasinha, 47 years old (left) and her husband Naveen Dias Weerasinha, 36 (right).
They initially considered setting up a glamping initiative in the UK, but found it too expensive.
But a trip to Sri Lanka, where Naveen is originally from, inspired them to begin their new chapter there.
The couple were first encouraged to move after Anka, originally from Socialist Eastern Germany, faced problems with her health.
She was having “panic and anxiety attacks and was having a really hard time.”
“Sometimes I would spend all day in bed and I didn’t want to go out anymore,” she told Ben.
‘I’m so surprised, so happy that I can sit here and talk to you about this now. Back then…she wouldn’t have done it.
Anka has in the past felt “stupid” for having mental health issues and like she is “disabled.”
“And then, like Naveen said, you know, ‘okay, Anka, then let’s go,'” he explained.
The couple told Channel 5’s New Lives in the Wild, which airs tonight at 9pm, how they built it all up after years of working on the corporate ladder.
The couple were first encouraged to move after Anka, originally from Socialist East Germany, faced problems with her health.
She’s not “totally free” of panic attacks now, but she knows she’s doing the best she can for herself.
And Naveen revealed that while Anka’s health was the big catalyst, he was already frustrated by his career from the start.
“I always wanted to get to the top,” he said. ‘But by then I started to wonder, you know, this whole work thing, is it for me?
‘You know, why do people in this work for 40 or 50 years, in split shifts? But I still appreciated, you know, having these promotions and everything. And I really worked for it too.”
Naveen was clocking in from 10am until midnight and said he was expected to be “very excited about it”.
“At first I enjoyed it,” he admitted. ‘I found out that it’s all about the brand you use, how you present yourself. Make sure you have the top button on, although your tie does the job of covering it… it was a great game.’
The couple arrived in Sri Lanka “with nothing” – and had no skills when it came to carpentry or setting up a house – when they started working on The Cliff Lodge.
But with the support of their team and some time, the couple has built what Ben describes as a “utopia.”
Everyone at the Lodge is also paid the same salary, in what Anka says is her attempt to find the balance between “living your life at your workplace or working at home.” Ben took his photo taking in the impressive landscape.
“We started with tents,” Anka explained. And in fact we also slept in a tent for a year and ten months. And you know, slowly learning how the wind works here, how storms work, that you need a little bit of a platform because when the big rain comes, the water just runs down here… So we learned our lesson.’
Everyone at the Lodge is also paid the same salary, in what Anka says is her attempt to find the balance between “living your life at your workplace or working at home.”
“We wanted to use our capabilities to create something where other people could also benefit for themselves,” he said.
‘The Cliff Lodge is still a business. We’re very fortunate to have a place where we can run the business the way we want without any of this fake stuff or anything like that.
‘When something goes wrong here, then we’re all in the same boat. If all goes well here, then we’ll all be in the same boat too. There is no blame or games or anything like that.
Ben Fogle: New Lives in the Wild airs Tuesday February 6 at 9pm on Channel 5