Goldi Sands Hotel Negombo

... Lankan Sunday Leader was shot dead in Columbo. This extraordinary article was published three days later. 'I hope my murder will be seen not as a defeat of freedom but an inspiration' Comments (86) No other profession calls on its practitioners to lay down their lives for their art save the armed forces - and, in Sri Lanka, journalism. In the course of the last few years, the independent media have increasingly come under attack. Electronic and print ...

... is definitely not to be recommended. Having been kept waiting half an hour for our taxi to take us to the airport because the driver was ill and the replacement driver couldn't see well enough in the dark to drive (watching his attempts to reverse the taxi into the hotel drive way we were inclined to agree) we thought nothing else could go wrong. Leaving aside that the second replacement driver was more interested in taking his wife home than taking us to the airport we were just a ...

... took pity on me because he gave me a free ride as he was heading to the main street. I got my bearings and walked the 30mins back to my hotel - by now i was pretty sweaty so i decided to go for a swim. It was some local office party and there were heaps of kids in the pool. One of them asked me to play ball with him - they were all in the shallow end (couldn't swim in deep waters) and i was treading water in ...

Well, after waiting around forever, I got on the Sri Lankin Air flight to their capital city Colombo. The first few minutes of the flight were cool, we flew over the desert that I didn't get to see, and some neat mountain ranges in Oman. I had a little Sri Lankin Kid sitting next to me during the flight that couldn't sit still, and the only music they provided (my battery died on my MP3 player and I have no voltage adapter) was Michael Jackson ...

... walking under umbrellas, and local families gathered together. As a very rare tourist I was constantly smiled at or spoken to by nearly everyone I passed. Apparently, western concepts of privacy and solitude are little understood (I would have better understood why, if it had only been the ladies!) in an island whose culture is based on extended family grouping and closely knit societies in which everybody knows everyone else's business (a bit like the village ...

... clinic, it was being held just 10 minutes up the road from h**e but we had to be th**e early to set up, aft** the clinic at Habarana I decided we needed tents for temporary post op recov**y areas. A v**y kind lady in the UK donated money for us to buy 4 tents and as I had brought them ov** in my luggage this trip they got th**e first outing today A sensible p**son would have practiced putting the "easy to assemble" tents up before the clinic ...

... as is the odd stray cow walking past you on the road. On the drive home from Colombo, there was an elephant in the middle of the road. Apparently they come out at night and wonder about and cause road accidents. These are the sorts of things that remind me that I'm not in Carrick, if I ever forget! Right time to do some washing.....the fun never ends! Also the other exciting news is I have a jelly setting in the fridge-roll on tomorrow night when it'll be ready!

... receive free schooling- and most importantly they are provided with at least 1 hot meal. As some children live in the nearby slums, they are dependent on this food. Preschool starts at 8am and they have their breakfast before doing typical preschool activities - singing, colouring, playing. The day finishes at 12 when they have their lunch. Then around 130, the older children come straight from school and get lunch. From 3-4pm they have an hour of lessons (English ...

... I thought it was too inconvenient to go down the rocks to the water's edge. We started with a pose at a point where the stairway began and a sign said "Adam's Peak." Although the ascent traced out for us by the lights looked daunting, the beginning was an easy walk up, more path than stairway, with buddhist shrines and small market stalls to remind us that we were tourists or pilgrims and not mountain climbers. Julia (Singapore ...

... There wasn't very much to see because everything was closed and it's a fairly small place anyway, but it was very pleasant to be on the bikes and have a little explore. In the evening we tried to plan our time for the next 2 weeks, trying to see as much as possible whilst appreciating that 2 weeks isn't very long and we can't possibly see everything. Tune in over the next fortnight to see how our plan develops. (R)