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“There’s a major crisis ripping through homes all over the country at the moment, and political divisions have deepened as well,” said Andrew Fidel Fernando, a cricket writer and the author of “Upon a Sleepless Isle: Travels in Sri Lanka by Bus, Cycle and Trishaw.”

They’re seated at the front of a specialized electric bike called a “trishaw.”

In May, a jaundiced two-day-old died after her parents could not find a trishaw to take her to hospital.

For decades Sri Lanka has failed to invest appropriately in its public transport, while the island's wealthier residents continued to complain about the indiscipline of bus and trishaw drivers.

Iyer, the author of 15 books including “The Open Road” and “The Art of Stillness,” recalls a story from his early days as a world traveler, when he accepted a ride from a bicycle trishaw driver in Mandalay, Myanmar.