Sunday, 10 Sep 2023
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Travel
Continued from last week
The only side trip Sir Christopher and I made was to Anuradhapura where we found that long after the end of our prolonged civil war the town still remains very much a major military base. Sir Christopher bought a black safari jacket designed for the Special Forces as he said his damp clothes were beginning to smell. He also needed some glue for...
Continued from last week
It was overcast and wet but we woke up at 5 am, had coffee and tea, and drove into the Kumana forest to search for game. A sloth bear put on a good performance for us, digging underneath a log at the side of the Park track until we disturbed it with our photography. It was a beautiful beast that attended to its toilet a few feet off the road until...
I first met Sir Christopher Ondaatje in 2004 when I was in London. He comes from the famous Ondaatje family (his brother Michael is the author of Running in the Family) and Christopher himself left Ceylon in 1947 to go to school in England, spent five years in the City of London and then went to Canada where he made a fortune – first in finance, and then in publishing.
A...
Shading our eyes against the rays of a mild sun, we gazed further inside the narrow Daulagala- Embilimeegama road and the grand vista of the countryside sprawling below in the outskirts of Kandy. Venturing another three and a half kilometres along the same road that winds through fertile lush green paddy fields, we caught a glimpse of the impressive awe-inspiring...
Travel
The magnificent man-made Kandy Lake, the ‘Milky Sea’ is at the heart of the hill country town of Kandy, ringed by a leafy...
Situated in the border of the Central and Sabaragamuwa Provinces, the mighty Alagalle is ranked the 69th highest mountain in the...
Mahil Wijesinghe trains his lens on a rarely visited archaeological site, Nillakgama Bodhi-ghara where charm lies in its...
The Kataragama festival in July, which pays homage to the Hindu God Skanda, brings together Sri Lankans of all faiths. Mahil...
The “Whitehouse Murder” which took place in 1948 rocked the country. Exploring the site where the crime was committed, we...
Mahil Wijesinghe trains his lens on one of Sri Lanka’s less visited tourist destinations, Kudiramalai Point, bordering the edge...
Near Ingiriya, meet a community of monastic Bhikkus thriving on the ancient discipline of meditation amidst tranquility in the...
Another day, another place, and we hear another story. As we journey along the road to Batticaloa, passing Manampitiya, we cross...
With wild animals, water bodies and trees for company, at the dense Lahugala-Kumana forest, a team of enthusiastic nature and...
At the Grand Canyon, the different phases of the geological wheel is clearly seen. In a way, the Grand Canyon provides a cross...
Having visited Dematamal Vihara (featured last week), my next destination on the same road was Maligawila, a vast monastic...
Being a land of ancient kingdoms, there is a temple in ruins in almost every corner of our country. Built by kings and princes,...
Tantirimale: The ruins of this ancient monastic complex on the banks of the Malwatu Oya transports us to another era where...
It was a bright sunny morning when we visited Padavigampola and its environs as the morning sun rays filtered through a vast...
It is not every day that you get a chance to spend a leisurely day in a place steeped in history, art, architecture and lore. My...
This is my second visit to Kitulgala. The first was in the first week of November and I was hoping to meet Samuel Perera now 69,...
In mid-October a helicopter of a private airline flew at low altitude over the Kaudulla National Park spooking elephants and...
On hearing the name Karapincha, your mind would undoubtedly conjure up the Karapincha that we use as a flavouring in cooking....
The age of the steam locomotive may have passed, but Sri Lanka still remembers the days when the first Yakada Yaka huffed and...
In the wee hours of one morning, last week, my travel companions, Manju, Krish, Danushka, newcomer Nayanjana and I, entered the...
The young and the old, present and past students of St. Anne’s College, Kurunegala flocked in their numbers to the college...
Dambadeniya is a majestic, isolated, ancient city off the Kurunegala- Giriulla road. From the Kurunegala town off the Giriulla...
Although I prefer to visit the less visited sites around the country, I recently had an opportunity to visit the county’s most...
The attention of any visitor to the Southern Province is immediately drawn to the city of Galle and its maritime heritage of...
After venerating and offering pooja to the ‘Siyabalawa Devalaya’ at Kebilitta which is revered by pious devotees throughout the...
During the ancient Kandyan period, there was a unique type of Vihara called the ‘Tampita Vihara’ also known as, ‘Deva Matha...
I had heard plenty of stories about a place known until a few decades ago, as the Rajangana ruins, but I could not go there all...
The capital of the Southern Province, Galle is home to a population of around 100,000. Easily reached via the Southern Expressway...
One of the best preserved Bodhi-gharas (Bo-tree house) in the country is situated in Nillakgama, Hettigama. Our journey seeking...
Arankele means ‘The Forest of Arahats’. It lies beneath a mass of rocky ridges about 25 km to the north of Kurunegala, west of...
The key to Buddha’s Dhamma, or doctrine, is meditation, a practice with an ancient history. Meditation can only be carried out...
Tea estates lie over mist-laden hills and valleys as far as you can see. Shades of bright and light green carpet the hills and...
Having visited the Batatotalena cave temple (featured in the Sunday Observer last week), my next visit was to nearby...
Growing up in the rural countryside of a mountainous region close to Sabaragamuwa, I was always impressed by the views of the...
If it is history that fascinates you, Sri Lanka’s own spans 2,500 years. Some unique works of architecture, built hundreds of...
Last week I had the opportunity to travel to the Somawathie Chaitiya and was pleasantly surprised by the large wildlife refuge...
I reached the Degaldoruva temple in a village called Amunugama around 11 in the morning, following a tumultuous journey on narrow...
After a four-hour drive on the Avissawella-Hatton A-7 Road, we reached Ginigathena town early in the morning with mist-laden...
The third and final destination of our detour of Daulagala road was Embekke Devale. In the early morning sunlight we...
Sri Lanka is embellished by countless Viharas and Devales. Not surprisingly, there are many such places of spiritual...
Enjoy the comfortable drive down the picturesque, newly carpeted road from Suriyawewa to Mahagal Wewa, in the Northern part of...
The Kaziranga National Park is 430 square kilometers. It is 216 kilometers from Guwahati. Kaziranga is one of India’s’ most...
The recent crashes of LaMia Airlines Flight 2933 near the Colombian city of Medellín, and a Russian military jet soon after...
If, like me, you are a lover of Sinhala songs, you will no doubt have been mesmerized by the Sunil Edirisinghe song “Kayman...
The Northern Peninsula is a fascinating paradise. A land embellished with tradition, culture, religion and superstition. It has a...
My memory goes back to late 70th when I was a schoolboy, when I read a serialized story of Maduwanwela Maha Disawa in our sister...
When I visited Negombo, more than ten years ago, I passed by some of Colombo’s poorer areas, where people lived in wooden shacks...
The sunny morning of last Monday, I was in Negombo, the country’s fourth largest city, with the intention of seeing its colonial...
The meandering Walawe River begins as a spring in the Horton Plains and flows down across several provinces until it meets the...
In 1505, the Portuguese arrived in Ceylon, unintentionally, their fleet having been driven to shelter by a storm. They...