Sri Lanka unfolds through three people following different callings across the island. Shina, a gemology student, travels to the mines where sapphires and rubies are pulled from the earth, meeting the miners who work underground for stones she has only studied in theory. Jerome, a hot-air balloonist who has flown over four continents, drifts above the island in the early morning mist, using his balloon as a way to see the country's terraced hills and coastline from above. Dhamma Dassi, a Buddhist monk, practices the old craft of writing sacred text by hand on traditional paper before making the pilgrimage up Sri Pada, the mountain venerated by Buddhists and other faiths alike as a holy site. The film moves between these three threads rather than following a single narrator, letting mining tunnels, aerial shots of the countryside, and monastery routines stand in for a broader portrait of the island after decades of colonial rule and internal conflict. It favors observation over voiceover explanation, tracking each person's own quest.