Sri Lanka's hidden Pearl
The black birds at Arugam Bay.
Taking pictures is fun. It is a nice way to remember things you have seen and done. Some experiences feel vaguely empty when there are no pictures accompanying them for posterity, or next month. Pictures can also give an artistic touch to otherwise mundane experiences. They can make buses and tuk tuks interesting, and can also make you look cooler on Facebook. Continue reading ‘Arugambay Crows, Water Buffalos’
Home Needs shop, Arugambay high street, after high tide, December 2004
Remembering the 2004 Indian Ocean tsunami (- aftermath, press coverage)
I’d been staying with my brother and his family in Bahrain over Christmas, playing with his kids and hanging out by the pool. I remember when we first saw the news of the tsunami on TV and those shocking images. I knew immediately that I really wanted to go. I called my boss in London and suggested I flew straight to Sri Lanka from Bahrain, arguing I’d get there faster and for less money than the London correspondents. She agreed, before I had the chance to change my mind. That phone call kicked off a whirlwind of activity and emotion over the next 10 days or so – excitement, adrenalin, anxiety, exhaustion. It became the most valuable and moving reporting experience of my career. I witnessed scenes that I’d rather not witness again, that remain quite vivid and that I don’t think I’ll ever forget.
That’s not to say I saw the worst of the devastation by any means, or at least not the human cost. By the time I got from Bahrain to Colombo and from Colombo by road to the eastern district of Ampara – one of the worst hit areas – many of the dead had been buried or taken away. But bodies were still trapped in some of the villages we (I was travelling with a Reuters photographer) visited and Continue reading ‘Ms. Baldwin recalls events 5 years ago.’
Dharma Sri Abeyratne
A suitable choice of date for a Tsunami drill?
A tsunami preparedness rehearsal Buy cheap caverta will be held on December 26, Generic for keflex Saturday at 3.00 p.m. in 10 districts, Disaster Management Centre Director General Major General Gamini Hettiarachchi said.
Original 1999 Hotel sign. File photo
Tsunami preparedness rehearsals are held from time to time in various areas along the coastal belt so as to make the public aware regarding natural disasters which bring much havoc to human beings and resources.
Under this Tsunami preparedness exercise a single town has been selected from 10 districts amounting to 10 towns. The towns are Gampaha, Batticaloa, Trincomalee, Puttalam, Galle, Kalutara, Matara, Ampara, Hambantota and Colombo. Under this drill people will be evacuated from the selected 10 towns to places of safety identified earlier.
Everyone is complaining about the heat here, even the stalwarts who were born to it. Disgorged from mind numbing twenty-some odd hour flights, my son and I arrived to find the chocolates we had brought as Christmas presents liquefied into something the consistency of a post-rain mud flow. Vitamin capsules succumbed to the heat in Ziploc bags; lipstick lost its former identity as we moved to the tune of Christmas carols, bright lights and election streamers that dot the streets of this country just a heartbeat north of the equator. We are back in Sri Lanka. It’s Christmas in Colombo! Continue reading ‘Tsunami Anniversary: A Christmas Without War’
Order moduretic 25 After 12 hours in a dilapidated bus, cramped by suitcases and boardbags and 25 others, there is only one thing preventing us from our destination: a young soldier thumbing through our passports, the trigger of his gun close enough for me to touch. He eyes us carefully and motions to another soldier to search our luggage. We nervously hold our breaths as they begin to pull out our carefully constructed wall of suitcases from the back of the bus. This could take hours. At some point though, the soldiers decide no additional searching is necessary and send us on our way.
Our bus ride began in Colombo, Sri Lankaa??s capital city. I am slightly on edge, especially since Colombo is often the site of terrorist bombings. I keep an eye out for Tamil Tigers, guerilla soldiers listed by the EU and the US as a terrorist organization, but I am told that if I see one, I wona??t live to tell about it.
We make our way to Arugam Bay, a surfer town on the eastern coast of the country. Our bus driver, I begin to suspect is blind in his right eye, Continue reading ‘Arugam Bay is a heavy one ….’
2009 International Photography Exhibition Location: Arugam Bay, Potuvil, Sri Lanka a?? July, 2009 Photographer: Senaka Goonewardena University Affiliation: Undergraduate Student Category: People Award: Best in Show
Other entries to this Exhibition can be admired on this remarkable photo collection: http://picasaweb.google.com/OSUInternationalAffairs/2009PhotographyExhibition#
Arugam.info highly recommends the following, well researched traveler’s report
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kudumbigaladagaba
After a short hiatus we are back withA?more onA?our backpacking venture. Expect more posts on more travels in the near future. You can also view a short grainy video of our stay at Aa??Bay here.
Day 2 saw us still at Arugam Bay and wondering what to do next. Consulting the trusty Lonely Planet Guide it was found that there is a rock monastery built in the middle of the jungle many centuries ago. The place is called Kudumbigala and further searching on the internet provided us with more information on it. Lonely Planet had never been thereA?due toA?the area being closedA?in times of war. Naturally, we jumped at the chance.
The monastery is located roughly 30Kms down the road south of Arugam Bay. The road heads fromA? Arugam Bay to Panama, which is about 16 kms away. Continue reading ‘Day 2 Arugam bay, Kudumbigala Monastery and Getting back to Batti’
Prazosin purchase qoute: Arugam Bay is one of the most popular destinations…….
Boot n' All
The travel warning (by the US State Dept.):
After 25 years of on-and-off violence against the government of Sri Lanka by Continue reading ‘Why go to …Arugambay?’
This is close to Zyvox generic name Potuvil – Batticaloa (A4) road and it lies about 25km from Potuvil towards Akkaraipattu. The main road does not go close to the beach, so you have to turn towards the sea side and travel further 3-4 km on a gravel track. For the last bit, you may need to walk through an open land where there is no roads but only footpaths.
At the beach you will see an abondoned lighthouse. From there you will see endless beaches on both sides. One notable feature about Eastern beaches is that it has wider beaches than Southern or Western beaches. Here at Sangamankanda, the beach is over 100m wide.
This place is a real treat for a hiker!
http://kirigalpoththa.blogspot.com/2009/03/lonely-beach-at-sangamankanda-point.html
Arugam Bay is a bay situated on the Indian Ocean in the dry zone of Sri Lanka’s southeast coast. The bay is located 320 km due east of Colombo. It is a popular surfing and tourist destination. Many of the buildings were destroyed in the 2004 tsunami. Due to its popularity among tourists, the area has managed a slow recovery by private initiatives only. The main road through town has still not been repaved. By the end of 2008 no help has been received from any official source or international organizations. An exception is uncoordinated support for fishing folk as well as many school rebuilding programs, resulting in a continuation to provide only separatist schools for each community. Continue reading ‘Arugam Bay’Green Media is planning a documentary about the human/ nature conflict. The perhaps largest herds of wild elephants are found in Lahugala, which is just 30 Minutes from the Surf Paradise of ArugamBay
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Common Ground is an independent documentary collaboration with the Sri Lanka Wildlife Conservation Society.The film explores the plight of the Asian elephant and draws the connection between the lives
of a family of elephants and the lives of rural farmers. We discover some amazing similarities between the two groups Continue reading ‘Truly wild Elephants are still all around Arugam’
So ita??s time to plan our little trip down south. Most probably stopping over at Mirissa & Hikkaduwa along the way to Tissa & eventually Pottuville via Monaragala. Was in Beruwala over the weekend & visibly noticed the effects of the increased tourist arrivals, although official figures only show a 7% increase in October I believe, the foreign guest nights have doubled from 200K to more than 400K, a staggering figure. But somethinga??s never change & Sri Lanka seems to be living up to ita??s old tagline of a??a??The worlda??s retirement homea??a??, with so many retired holiday makers around its hard to convince anyone otherwise.
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Ia??m hoping & expecting Hikka to be different, although I know Mirissa will certainly live up to the hype. The Mirissa surf point comes alive during this of the year & well, Ia??m still learning to thread water. So until next season Ia??ll place some value on my life & enjoy a good smoke and drink on the tropical beaches and leave the reef dodging surf skills to the experts.
Since we might be doing Potuvil via Tissa & Moneragala Continue reading ‘Drive Down, out of town.’
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