12-09-05

I wrote an entry yesterday but didn't have time to post it so this will be a bit out of order. Today I am in Hikkaduwa, about 2.5 hrs south of Columbo right on the ocean. It took 2.5 hours to go 101km, about 60 miles. Again I think you average about 25 km an hr here no matter where you go in SL.

Hikkaduwa became quite popular with the surfers/divers (non native) in the 60's and today it seems some of them are still here, just gray like us. Our hotel has quite a few guests and 90% of them are Caucasian and are in beach garb, even in town. I have never worn shorts outside of the house in deference to the culture. Here it seems no one would notice if I wore shorts to town.

Ron is doing a two day training at the hotel and I get to be a beach bum. Not a bad deal at all. The area we are in was hit by the tsunami last December. You may recall the news clips of the train that was knocked off the tracks and where many died while trying to escape. That village is quite near here. There are lots of 'temporary houses' that have been built to house those who lost their homes in the tsunami. These are one room wood structures that we would consider shacks. Most do not have windows, just one door. I saw two tents used as housing yesterday also.

The hotel we are in is right on the beach, which is quite narrow. Apparently two members of the training team was here in March and stayed in our hotel. At that time there were no windows on the first floor and no AC . Only one floor out of the four floors was available for guests. Today it appears mostly restored. It is a beautiful setting, looking out at some rocks and a coral reef, which is endangered due to a bleaching that occured in 1997 that caused the reef to reject the algae on which it is dependent. It is also threatened by the unregulated number of glass bottomed boats that go to the reef for tourists and the amount of garbage dumping from the resort hotels. I will not be going out on the glass bottom boat consequently.

This morning I went out of the dining area onto the patio and was asked to go another way. I realized they were 'restaining' the tile patio. I had never seen that before. It also appeared they were cutting the lawn using a weed eater as opposed to a lawn mower.

Coconut trees abound here, loaded with coconuts. It is very pictureques. There are hundreds of crows that last evening at sunset were making quite a racket. I arrived shortly before suset which was beautiful. Sunsets in SL are brief, apparently because we are close to the equator. Last night the sun was a brillant coral orange. This morning I spied lots of chipmunks on the grounds. It is considerably cooler here, with a constant sea breeze. May be a good place to escape to when the heat gets to be too much in Colombo.

When Ron is finished today we are going to Amalangoda that is famous for carved masks. There are 18 designs used for exorcising various illnesses. We like to collect masks from the variuos places we have visited so today will be fun as these masks are large and highly colored.

That's it from SL for today.