Weligama Bay Resort

... out to be a great guy. He really just wanted to practice his English and get to know a foreigner. He took me to his house, introduced me to his lovely family and gave me a tour of the city. I had such a good time I agreed to meet up the next day. He pedaled me around on the back of his bike and we checked out a funeral procession. He told me they did not mind if I took photos so I let her rip. We followed the procession all the way into the ...

... knew what had happened to the ones who go to smile and were Christians, cause they were at the church, which was far enough out of reach of the shore. The others i did not know and if something did happen in the middle of the night what would happen to them? Thankfully we woke to news that everything had calmed down and that was a situation that was no more than a thought. After breakfast, we all made our way to the school. It was decided that ...

... shack somewhere near nothing and hmmm... the vegetable rotis, the things that are kind of like scotch eggs, but taste good, and a cup of Sri Lankan milk tea.... Hmmmm.... Life is turning into a constant struggle not to get fat. If anyone is travelling on a diet, fly with Thai Airways, the food is unbelievably bad! Alright, you can all look away now. This bit will be even duller than usual and I'm only writing it for Arnold and ...

Despite my inquisitive nature, I never questioned where cinnamon came from. I assumed storks dropped the powdered stuff off at Safeway and someone somewhere was the millionaire owner of a cinnamon-stick factory. Turns out it comes from trees that grow everywhere in Sri Lanka. In fact, Sri Lanka is the only exporter of cinnamon in the whole world (so I've been told). Recently, a ...

... to find I didn't have enough money for two. Shame really, it's not at all about the money, it's more about whether any relationship you build here is based on friendship or what they an get out of it. And giving a present doesn't feel like giving a present when the receiver expects twice as much as you gave. And the good feeling I had turned a bit sour. Nanden is still a genuine and really nice guy, who really did want to talk and be ...

... twiddling there thumbs wondering whether they've made a terrible mistake building a new guest house the year that nobody turned up! Bubs and Dillip moved from one guest house to a much nicer one and the scummy guest house phoned the good guest house and threatened to kill them (apparently). The weather has been terrible! All rain and cloud with the blue moon type sunny day. At least that how it was, then Bubbly, Dillip and Leela went home and it's been sunny ever ...

... with students and teachers there over the past month and it does have a nice atmosphere. It's also one of the schools where its easy to see that we're making a difference, both as teachers and as part of the organisation Travellers Worldwide. We still get asked "Your country from? Your name is? Father name is?" but it tends to be the instant reaction and when we stop and ask them to repeat it they do correct themselves, so there's progress there somewhere ...

... disappearing in giggles, another decided to stare and smile at us while walking quite a distance and then another went and got all his friends from the shop and brought them out to stare at us too! Anywhere else we could've been quite offended by this but not in Sri Lanka! The next bus journey was almost like a horror movie! We were rammed on the tiniest seats while we went round the most corners I've ever seen on a really narrow road going uphill on the edge of a ...

... picture advertising holidays to the Maldives. Now I know this is not a back packing destination. Some of the islands are ridiculously expensive and pretty exclusive but the flights are cheap, cheap, cheap and I doubt we will get the chance to go again for this price. We ask about accommodation but they have no brochure so we nip across the road to an internet café and have a look. It's cheaper to book rooms direct so we look at a few others too. There is a great website called ...

... as usual, used the services of Pathirana, our preferred tuk tuk driver. When they returned he asked if he could pick us up at 7am the following day (New Year's Day)." No way" we replied but he then explained to us that it would bring him good luck for the following year if his first passengers were 'special' or words to that effect. How could we refuse? Paul then managed to get himself challenged to a run along the beach at 6:15am with Ishan and Ajit, one of the new 'boys', from ...