Reef Beach Villa Wadduwa

... more of a selection than a 7-11) for a few grocery items and I've picked up a few things to have in the room in the evening. Daisy buys dinner every night at the hotel, which really adds up. I did splurge and buy a bottle of Cuban Bacardi, which set me back almost $30, but it's the only rum available. Nearest to it is the local drink called Arrack, made from sugar something, which if you close your eyes and pretend, can pass for rum. It needs help, like ...

... art projection format, but this theater was a sad, dingy place. This time I paid about $1 to sit in the balcony, which was hot, with uncomfortable seats, and filled with flies and mosquitos. But when you paid extra for the balcony ticket, at least you were closer to the overhead fans. I was warned when I entered that they were having their interval break to sell snacks, which meant that the guy who sold me the ticket went around the theater with a cardbox full of a hot fried ...

... and it is a large hotel. Though 4*, the signs of wear and tear are obvious throughout - the white sheets not so crisp, small repairs left undone. The 'shopping area' - a block of 4 units - has only one occupied business, and even that was closed for almost the whole of my visit. The business centre is closed. A combination of tsunami and civil unrest has caused a dramatic downturn in tourism. That evening a large group of Europeans arrived ...

... back to Negombo for my last night,an older man talks to me.He's a fisherman with 2 children and his wife died in the tsunami.He asks me to guess his age. I say 60 thinking it's probably closer to 70. I say 70 on the second guess and then he tells me he's 58. (ouch!).He asks me if I'm married which is usually the next question after where are you from and do you like Obama.So I tell him "No". "Why?". Divorce.You like Sri Lankan girl? Sure.For marry? Sure. You come back Sri Lanka ...

... delay. I didn't quite get the blog right - something went awry with the pictures and I didn't have time to fix it up. I had a bottle of excellent fiery ginger beer (good for the throat, allegedly) and a chat with the Chaplain who runs the mission, Capt Payne. Then whisked away through various bits of the port (it's like a town within a town) and a short insight into the life of a port agent and back to the ship, having seen about 1 ...

... priced approach to tourism where each visitor is required to spend US$240 per day (60% of which goes to the government) on accommodation and food and to travel with a guide. The capital ,Thimpu, is a bit sleepy: witness these dogs snoozing in the middle of the city's main traffic roundabout. The weekend market is a colorful event. The meat is from ...

... and stopped in another town. Again we followed crowds of people up a 20/25 step climb. On one side you looked down to see the village, and then if you walked a few meters, on the other side you looked down on the ocean. It was a lovely view. There was also a temple as well which is what the people were more interested in. So it was a very interesting day and you'll be pleased to know I have no interest ...

... Ex-royal-kingdom of Sri Lanka I visited Kandy, which is about 3 hours from Colombo towards the centre of the country. This city used to be one of the original kingdoms of Sri Lanka, back in the days when there existed a royal family. The city is quite tiny compared to Colombo, and I think because of this I really enjoyed it. The centre of the city holds the Temple of the Tooth placed right next to a beautiful ...

... Ocean for Colombo, Sri Lanka and Mumbai, India. Legally these container ships are allowed to bring along a few passengers, though they rarely do, and given all the logistical hurdles it's not hard to see why. For one thing, there are only a handful of travel agents in the world who can organize such a journey, and they may or may not be able to find something heading along the route that you're interested in. Then you have to be flexible about your departure ...

... Pakistan), Nonie (US, Taiwan), Lieve (Netherlands), others. The Srilankan food was spicy but good. After lunch, the Coordinating team met to draw up the schedule for the evening and the next day. We were supposed to have a welcome dinner and a program but dinner was late and we were all too tired for games. Being the one who knew the participants best, I volunteered to take care of the introductions, doing this by groups of those who arrived together. Evelyn, as EWA coordinator ...