Many fun experiencess 👍

Sri Lanka is quite a well developed/progressive country which appears to be  doing very good now, after the economic/political upheaval in 2022.

Damith took me to visit what he calls the "bush" where he grew up. 

Having been born in real "bush" in Malvern, St Elizabeth, Jamaica, where we only had 2 shops, one gas pump a police station and a post office, I was shocked at what he called a bush in Sri Lanka 😂.

From information gleaned since my visit, while the country has no precious minerals, it has developed vibrant manufacturing, tourism, export and agricultural industries.

It is well suited for agriculture as it is so huge and has more than enough rainfall, rivers etc. It exports tea, rubber, foods, spices, palm oil and of course does large-scale rice production/processing. 

That is well-needed here as according to Professor Damith, most Sri Lankans eat rice for breakfast, dinner and supper.🫢.

To get to the 'bush,' we took a long- distance bus from Colombo to the huge town of Matugama, overnighted at the Diya Ulpatha Tea Garden resort and moved around on tuk tuk or bike. (Damith owns his own bike and leaves it in Matugama with a friend. (Gama means town in Sinhalese, so whenever you see a name ending in that, it's self descriptive.)

His so-called 'bush' areas also fall between the villages of Welipenia and Ittapana.

We stayed overnight at the small, nice, rustic hotel in Mahgama and could see sections of the UNESCO recognized Sinharaja Forest Reserve
from our hotel room.

Below are pics of our little hotel and it's grounds.

Just posing. Haven't ridden a bike for almost 40 years😊.

I first met Damith and Sharlene decades ago in Jamaica when we were all members of the Fun and Thrills Adventure Club. We toured my country extensively, hiking, cycling and swimming in every river we saw. So I knew him to be a strong cyclist, but he surprised me by being a competent motorcycle rider as well!

So in the 'bush', he would tow Sharlene and I separately, leave the first towee

 at a central spot, then return to pick up the other.

On other occasions, he and Sharlene would travel in front on their bike while I would follow behind in a royal carriage aka tuk tuk😊.

Among the places he took us was the Welipenia River. It separates the Western Province of Sri Lanka from the Southern and is is supposedly crocodile infested. 

Damith says his father gave him a bitch-beating for swimming in it.😂

In the olden days, people crossed in small row boats but modern technology has taken over. 

Local people now use a manually pulled rope ferry to traverse it. 

The cost to take a bike or tuk tuk across is a mere 11 cent US and it runs regularly.🫢.

Wonderful memories in pictures.

'Ferry' carrying people and their transportation across the Welipenia River.

This is the famous Ceylon tea.  The young leaves at the top are reaped weekly. It is a major, cherished sector in Sri Lankan export industry.

While Damith and Sharlene rode around on their bike, I often followed behind in this tuk tuk "carriage". The owner says this one is a jaguar😊.

Inside the 'jaguar'.

We were introduced to many childhood friends in his home town.

Anjani is a professional Dancer. She dances in the Buddhist temple as well as with her university group. Her mom (in the back in above picture) also danced at the Buddhist temple in her youth.

I sometimes followed Damit in a tuk tuk while he and Sharlene rode around on the bike in front of us.

Damith's childhood friend Ajanta, brought me from the bus stop in Matugama to the hotel on his bike.

He is a kind of eccentric and an electronics genius. For example I saw satellite dishes on his neighbor's houses but he built the antenna below from beer cans and it appears to work well.😊.

Ajanta's antenna made from beer cans. It seems to work well.

This symbol has been vilified because Hitler adopted it. However it has been used for centuries by ancient cultures like the Etruscans. Adjanta, a dedicated Buddhist, has one over his front door.

The pyramid contraption that Adjanta 

built. He meditates inside it for hours and says it's so hot that if you put coconut milk inside it for 24 hours, it turns to oil! Don't know if that is really possible, but suh mi get it so mi gi it!😊

Section of the so-called 'bush' town of Matugama, near our bus stop.

Sharlene and Damit on their bike.

Damit visits his friend Anusha at her store in his village. 

I still can't get over how well maintained the roads and drainage are all over Sri Lanka, for during monsoon season, it rains on and off every day. In my country, it doesn't rain half as much but they can't keep up with road maintenance. Something stinks😡.

( I have only seen one potholed-filled road so far after travelling hundreds of miles both in towns and off the main roads. That made me feel at home, but in a bad way.)

I must say, May 20th 2025 was a fantastic day, only surpassed by my surprise birthday celebration that night. 

(https://joan-myviews.blogspot.com/2025/05/my-birthday-sri-lankan-style.html)

Country life nice😊

I love the countryside. Country areas anywhere in the world. 

Maybe its my love of animals which causes me to find these parts so attractive. Problem is, this love only exists in the daytime, as being in the country at night is quite scary.  

When you live there, I mean, not when visiting with lots of friends around.

Phoebe Snow

It never used to be this way with me before I had a traumatic break-in and had no neighbors with lights to illuminate the darkness outside.

 Not a little light anywhere. 

So now if I can’t see a neighbor’s light outside, such places are not for me to live in.

Even driving in the country areas alone at night is quite discombobulating. For I always think that if I get a puncture or some other problem, some serial killer is going to come along and make my live miserable.

That’s what happens when you are addicted to shows like Criminal Minds, CSI, Forensic Files, Dateline etc.  

These programs I enjoy but they can be hazardous to your peace of mind.😊

Sandy

Why am I rambling so much, you may very well ask?😏

I just had another few wonderful days with friends in the country- side, that’s why.

This was in Sebring, Northern Florida, where a friend and I drove to for three hours, to surprise another friend on her birthday. (22/10/). 

When I go to places like that in the USA, I always hope to see a black bear or two, but never have such luck. On this trip, my disapointment was made even worse, when another friend showed me that her security camera had picked one up a few days before, right across the street.

There's a black bear behind the SUV!

Well, I saw no bears, but I met two very nice horses. 

The white one is Phoebe Snow and the darker one Sandy.

They are so friendly that when my host Cardiff called them and just held out his hand with some grass, they came trotting rapidly towards him. 

They even allow his grandson to ride them, I hear.

 Lovely horses. Pity I can’t ride, as the last time I mounted a horse, the saddle was slack, I slid off and he nearly stepped in my head.

Now I play with them but resist the temptation to mount!

It was good to see that Sebring escaped the devastation of hurricane Ian. It did pass through but only tore down some branches and added some water to the creeks and lakes.

Where I stayed with friends, I had previously avoided going down to the creek on the property because it is a hangout for wild boars, rattle snakes and other unfriendly types. 

Since my host recently acquired an ATV though, we got a proper tour of the back of his large, forested property, and all was well.

There were fallen trees and others were missing branches, but nothing serious and the creek actually had a good amount of water in it this time.

Yup, those few days in the countryside with friends around were really refreshing.

Occasions like this always make me want to move from the city.

Then night falls. 😊

A PICTORIAL TOUR

 

Ride Good David/The misty Blue Mountain Range

Some of the happy hikers

I can't forget the first time I met David Linehan some years ago. He was a little Englishman, probably in his 70's who had  been in Jamaica for quite a few years. I have no idea why the conversation that day was about how we would like to die, but  his version of the perfect exit was to be shot by a jealous husband. He was on about his third marriage at the time. Not only did David have a great sense of humour but also he was addicted to cycling and impressed  us with many of his escapades including his having entered the Tour de France in his youth. After that, I saw him riding often, sometimes with others but more often by himself.

It wasn't a jealous husband who killed  David though but unforgiving cancer, but even after it was diagnosed and he was receiving treatment, I often saw him riding although he did admit that sometimes he was feeling quite weak. He however would have been overwhelmed by the send- off he received from his many friends and admirers from just about every cycling club in Kingston who gathered at Newcastle in the Blue and John Crow mountain range, to ride to Buff bay in Portland and back on Sunday 10th January, as a tribute to him. 

Ride good David.

Yes I admired David and wouldn't have minded doing a cycling stint in his honour but definitely not the 20 mile return journey back from Buff Bay for it is uphill all the way.

So I happily joined in with a few people who decided to accompany the cyclists to Newcastle and hike to Cascade Waterfall at Regale.

It was an absolutely wonderful day to hike as the hills were overcast and a gentle drizzle accompanied us most of  the way .

 When  we got to Green Hill, Chuck showed us a shortcut to the waterfall but as the path was wet and we suspected it would be slippery, we opted to stay on the road.

It was while we there discussing the options that Mikey rode up and advised us that his bike was a taxi but we declined the offer of his  services. Shortly after,  the rain started to really pour down  but while some persons jumped into the support vehicle being driven by Chris, the rest of us soldiered on.

Chuck and Miss Bunny wait on the coffee to boil

At Section it was quite an experience as we stopped at Dennis Coffee shop where you can get the total Jamaican coffee experience. For there the coffee is taken through every stage before your eyes if you are a tourist and wish to see it prepared.  That is, the beans are roasted, then beaten in a mortar and boiled on a wood fire.

Flash poses beside the mortar in which the coffee beans are beaten

It was there too that we met a colourful character who said he was called Flash.

 He had a glass of white rum in his hand (at around 9 am) and was sipping happily. When asked why he was indulging so early, he explained that he was on his way to church and since the parson  had his "owna spirit" he had to get his too.

After coffee Flash staggered along with us downhill to where his church was at Padhouse. He even sang one of his songs for us for he assured us that he was a successful entertainer but I am not sure I agree with him there!

After leaving Section the rest of us walked along the breakaway area but Charles was taking no chances and went on the new road.

I remember when we were going to Avocat the new road had not yet been constructed so we have to push our cycles along the breakaway section but it looked less scary now. I suspect it is because the bottom of the deep ravine is now fully covered by bushes so you can no longer see the dept to which the road had collapsed during the landslide which created the breakaway.

 It was an easy walk downhill from Section in weather designed for a hike in the mountains. Not much further on, we were surprised to see Chully zipping up towards us. We thought he had morphed into an outstanding rider, leaving the experts like Maurice behind, but he assured us that after it took him over an hour and a half to ride 10 miles downhill, he was not about to complete the entire journey as it would mean him getting back home too late.

Amazingly however, not too long after we saw Barry bolting up the hill and he assured us he had completed the entire journey to Buff Bay and was on his way back to Newcastle.

We eventually got to Cascade but were told that the waterfall was about another mile down, so trodded on.

 We were soon joined by a gentleman who told us he was a part-time tour guide and he sung the praises of the waterfall.  It was a really nice walk down to Regale but by the time we got there it was heavily overcast and we could barely see the falls in the hills. Our companion wanted to take us up to the falls anyway but the track he pointed out was slippery and most people were not about to face the possibility of slipping and hurting them-self on the tiny path and besides it was too cold to swim anyway. So we decided that another trip to Cascade waterfalls would have to be be organised for some time during the summer months when the water would be much warmer. (hopefully!)

Cascade waterfall on a clear day

It was a good thing we took that decision too for shortly after we piled into the support vehicle, a very heavy mist descended and at times I swear Chris never had visibility of more than about a foot.

We could barely see the waterfall because of the mist

 As it was an open back vehicle, the men were in the back and I heard them, bawling for cold as we drove along. On quite a few occasions too, vehicles that had been invisible in  the thick mist, suddenly appeared in front of us and Chris had to do a lot of reversing and maneuvering to get us back safely to Newcastle.

We then went to Cafe Blue for breakfast, about three hours after we had asked them to prepare for us, but they were most obliging and accommodated us. It was really a wonderful  morning of hiking in the scenic, healthy Blue Mountain range, now a UNESCO site.