Hotel Sunset Beach 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 ...

... us three days and we had time to wander the resort at Negombo. The Silver Sands may be the best of the transit hotels but they don't employ a chef, their dead strength is rice and curry. We were ripped off to the tune of 100% by the local roti stall, presented with a pizza too bizarre to describe - it was topped with a cheese slice, blackmailed by the agent handling our refund and generally fed the most disgusting excuse for food we have encountered in the past six months ...

leg two of our four leg journey with Mihin Lanka and they have changed the date by two days without so much as a by your leave. Luckily our HC contact in The Maldives is a very accommodating chap and changed our hotel reservation without demur. Landing on Shetland used to be quite a thrill; the plane would apparently fly straight for the cliff and only at the last minute were you sure it had gone ...

... 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 ...

... out of the hotel with no camera or money, I promised I would return early the next day with a small donation to help uniform her boy. Obviously grateful, she offered to take me to the tailors to watch them make the uniform (and to prove the genuine nature of her story) but having been afforded a small view of her life, you really couldn't make it up. With it being the weekend, the beach was busy, with groups of boys playing either rounders or cricket, young ...

... and we are truely settled in well. We have met some lovely couples here and had some nice chats, with them all giving us advice and information on where to go on our travells, which has been lovely and a massive help. We will be leaving here on the 6th September and making our way to Kerala, a german guy has given us details of a cheap flight company and a place to head to, but for now we are enjoying paradise in Unawatuna!!!!!!

Another Friday and another afternoon of rain and power cuts. As I keep saying, I can't believe the weekend has come around again! The afterschool class on Friday is the one that has the most knowledge so they are actually the most challenging class as they pick everything up really quickly and know most words. They struggle with ...

... amp; not very touristy either. The jeep was bouncing all over the place, & at one stage we even got chased by a stressed out female elephant! One of the real highlights of Sri Lanka for me, i didn't think we'd see that many creatures! I now love elephants nearly as much as orang-utans ...

... The attitude of parish priest discouraged women to go ahead with their decision to marry and in effect nurture the guilt they feel which they bring over to the relationship with their partners and children. One of the ways which they resolved some tension is their approach to religion as one that sees similarities rather than differences. So the children have learned to and accept and see what it feels to belong. The Church has no place for children of ...

... grated coconut flavoured heavily with lemon. I think we're going to like the food here, and I also think we're going to quickly lose our carefully cultivated beach bodies.... :-) After lunch we started to go for a walk but instead found a shop hiring out bikes so took those instead, on a whim, and went riding round a virtually deserted (because New Year's Day is a national holiday) Negombo for a couple of ...