When we went Sri Lanka, the locals would burn some sort of incense in a chestnut-roaster type thing and waft it all about, keeping midges away.

Anyone happen to know exactly what it was they would have been burning?

Citronella comes up in a search, but I don’t remember them using anything…

In other part of South East Asia the most widely used is the dry coconut shell or skin.

In Sri Lanka it could be coconut shell or coconut shell powder or coconut mature shell powder …

Ah that sounds plausible. It had a nice smell. Might see if I can buy some in Northumberland next week.

deet…nothing else comes close.

will ask my FIL as he is native sri lankan. but we used deet and lots of it.

The reason dry coconut shell is used because they are free or at least widely available.

Yep we’ll be deeting up during the day .. but burning coconut shells at the tent door seems like a nice way of dissuading midges in the evenings.

The Coconut King sells them in boxes of 200