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)

Climate change is real

The 2021 Global Conference on Health & Climate Change held in late October to early November 2021 in Glasgow, Scotland may seem to be just another talk shop to some people, but to us in Jamaica, it is a deathly serious matter.

Pity two major polluters, China and Russia refused to attend.

Hellshire beach, before

The fact is though, that while it is the rich countries that are the major polluters and destroyers of our planet, it is small poor states and especially islands, that are already bearing the brunt.

Look at the poor island of Madagascar. Already a huge section of that island has been suffering from a chronic drought for the past four years, resulting in over a million people facing a devastating famine.

We will certainly be hearing similar heart-breaking stories from other places in the near future as storms, floods, droughts  and other natural disasters increase in intensity.

Right now in our own vulnerable island of Jamaica, beach erosion caused by global warming which causes sea levels to rise, has already started to destroy the source of income for hundreds of fishermen and other small entrepreneurs.

This came home to me starkly last year when a group of us went over to Hellshire Beach, a popular  seafood mecca near Kingston.

There hundreds of small entrepeneurs have made a good living for years, feeding those who have journeyed from Kingston and other areas to swim and enjoy their delicious fare.

No beach left at Hellshire

It had also been a regular hangout for my cycling club. We would ride over to the beach, swim, eat breakfast and have a wonderful time, then return to Kington. However, through the rising waters, the beautiful beach has virtually gone, putting hundreds of people out of business, as who wants to go there to eat the delicious seafood that they prepare, if you can’t swim anymore?

Where will we swim?

Other areas of Jamaica are already seeing the creeping disaster too. Among them is another very popular seafood food and fishing area at Alligator Pond in Manchester. 

St. Elizabeth is not being spared either, for residents of Calabash Bay are growing increasingly anxious as their beach slowly disappears.

Yes, many look at the issue of Climate Change and conferences in Europe as being remote and not of interest to us. But they are, for, on the ground the effects of global warming are being felt at the local level.

It is therefore heartening that our Prime Minister Andrew Holness, the extremely articulate Prime Minister Mia Motley of Barbados and other leading Caribbean leaders, made their way to that conference to put our story on to the front burner before it is too late.

The rich countries have promised to curb their destructive habits and make funding available to mitigate the problem. We can be cynical and say we have heard that before or we can become persistent  lobbyists to ensure that they do.

Because for us the dangers are imminent and real.

https://youtu.be/Lqu9pMsvagg

The circle of life

There is a feature on Facebook which I really cherish. That is their reminding us of your posts and photos posted years ago.

This picture  below, from sometime in 2016 was especially memorable.

Here I am, looking down the throat of a nurse shark, as a fisherman held its jaws open.

On that particular day, I had been returning from Bob Marley beach in Bull Bay, St. Andrew, Jamaica after a vigorous ride there with my fiends from Fun and Thrills Adventure club, to enjoy a Saturday morning swim.

Just before reaching the main road, I had run into two men, one pushing a wheelbarrow with a strange looking creature inside.

Curious, I stopped to find out what it was. When I was told it was a nurse shark, I berated the men for killing the poor creature which I declared was harmless.

That's when one told me it had been caught in his fishing net into which it had stealthily entered it to eat the fish inside.

He then pried its jaws open, to show me the evidence of its dastardly act.

He said he was going to sell it to a security company to recoup some of his losses. They he said, would grind it up for dog food.

That dear friends was another valuable lesson for me about the circle of life.

https://youtu.be/O4H4Js9esxY

No More "Pathole" For Me.

Enjoying the cool clear water at Bob Marley beach

If you have never heard of Fire Saga, you should shortly, as he says he will soon "buss out". I met him at Bob Marley beach this morning as he regaled all who were there with his latest CD.

I was actually the first rider to get there this morning because of a mix up in communication. The plan that I heard was that we would ride out from Charles' at 6.30 am but when I got there, everyone had left to go to a 5k at the airport. So I rode around to Michael and discovered that Alrick, Omar, Gary and Marlon had also been left out of the loop.

Omar and Alrick went riding to Jack's Hill and  I started out with Marlon and Gary for the beach.  That was when I was exposed to the civilized manner of warning riders behind of pitfalls like potholes in the road. Gary and Marlon have ridden professionally and they simply use hand signals when they see some danger in the road. We, the bhuttos of Fun and Thrills  normally simply shout out "pathole". 

Maybe we will all become sophisticated  one day and use our hands too instead of distorting the poor pothole!Anyway, on the way out, Gary and Marlon ran into an old colleague of theirs. His name is Troy and he rode with me for a while on Michael Manley Boulevard. He says he is a stunt rider on both bicycles and motorcycles. I would like to see him in action. After a while I could see he was itching to go race the others and I was riding slowly so I assured him,  I would be ok by myself.

I never saw them again until they arrived at the beach later. By then I already had my first swim and breakfast.

Charles Simpsonsoon joined me for he too had been screwed up information wise and he had ridden all the way up Mountain View avenue to meet us going to the beach,  so of course he ended up riding by himself both ways.The others filtered in close to 9 am and soon the sea was full.

 Ann Marie who had come with Desiree, thought she lost her gold earrings which she had left on a towel on a table on the beach and lots of people spent a good deal of time looking for them. It so happens some perceptive person had seen it on the towel and decided it was not safe so wrapped it in Maurice's socks and put it safely in his shoes. Then not to be left out, Chully started searching frantically for his towel in which his glasses had been wrapped up and left on the same table. Eventually he found his glasses on the table but his towel was never to be seen again. Apparently someone had mistakenly taken his towel and left a nicer, newer one for him, so he ended up being better off.

The beach was not its usual calm self as it had quite a current. Charles Simpson who lives nearby told us they have been having unusually high winds, up to 30 mph sometimes he thought, in the early morning so that could account for the roughness, erosion near the shore and signs of dirt in the water.

It was Jordan's birthday today so Betty brought along a lovely chocolate cake. Betty always rises to the occasion.

T

Penny and the kids joined us later and although she says she is going in to have the baby on the 5th February both Chully (who has a world of experience with babies) and I told her we see it in the stars for this month.

As usual a number of riders encouraged by Maurice,  decided they needed to ride back. We passed the first set by the Harbour View Round about . Johann who had left out last, was way ahead on Windward road and when we started up Mountain View Avenue, we saw Marlon and Gary in front.

Although the sea was not its usual calm and clear self, I still had fun in the water after a nice ride out.

Photos; compliments of Ms. Elizabeth Williams

https://youtu.be/O4H4Js9esxY

Bob Marley Beach

Today I discovered Bob Marley Beach. Oh yes, it has been around for a long time and lots of people knew about it, but I discovered it today. Discovered  it like how Columbus discovered Jamaica,  America etc. Lots of people have a problem with the statement about Columbus discovering far flung lands as they correctly ascertain that there were other people living in those lands when Columbus got there. But the dictionary  meaning of discover includes ".....to see, get knowledge of, learn of, find, or find out;......" so he did indeed discover these lands. So I too discovered Bob Marley beach.

It is  located in St. Thomas just pass the police station in Bull Bay. Charles Simpson discovered it before we did and he took us there this morning after the ride and breakfast. We were scouting it out for a ride next Saturday and luckily I was able to borrow a bathing suit from Betty for I would have had a fit if I did not have the opportunity to swim.

In terms of South eastern St. Thomas beaches, it is by far the best I have ever seen. To begin with it, it was calm and unlike those around Copa and Brooks Park etc it was not rough and does not have a current. Also, unlike th beaches along that strip, it is really shallow, no moving from 2 feet to 6 feet drops immediately like those other beaches.

Down there  you see quite as few fishing boats and fishermen who are ready to cater meals. Best thing though, they have bathrooms and wash off facilities for a  small fee. When I asked how I could "capture" some land around there, I was told that the area is actually owned by a Mr. Chin who  they say was a contemporary of Bob Marley  (so am I!) and they claim he has papers and has done surveys in the area. I still think it looks like government land and a public fisherman's beach but who am I to start contradicting those whom live there and are making a living from the sea!

Anyway, next week we will be riding there, having breakfast and swimming in those clean, calm,unpolluted waters and hopefully I will have pictures to post to show the world my latest discovery.

Eat your heart out Columbus for I too am in the discovering business!~

Talk Jamaican: Bob Marley Beach - YouTube

Talk Jamaican: Bob Marley Beach - YouTube

Caymanas River

Caymanas River in St. Catherine is probably one of Kingston's best kept secrets. For despite the fact that this lovely place to swim and pleasantly pass the time, is only around 15 minutes  drive from Half- Way Tree, not many persons wanting to cool off, go there.

Those who visit regularly are  persons wanting to be baptised. I don't know how the tradition started, but apparently in  "Christian Jamaica," there is this myth that there is something spiritual about those waters, hence on weekends there is a constant trek by Christians, mainly travelling in buses, to go there and do what John The Baptist said was necessary to enter the kingdom of heaven.

Dipping to get the holy spirit

So anxious are some religious leaders are to pass on the spirit, that one Sunday when I was there, one offered to baptise me there and then, no preparation whatever!!!!!

The area did go through a very bad spell some years ago because some '"bright men from the community decided to start charging people who went there. Apparently this because so lucrative, that they started to fight over the spoils leading to the death by some 9 persons in a very short period of time.

This then forced the owners, the government owned Urban Development Corporation to step in and fence off the area and provide security.

After a while they seem to have withdrawn and now the community has taken over the attraction (I doubt that they have a legitimate lease however) and are running it nicely.

They now provide secure parking, there are people sweeping sand keeping the place clean as a whistle and divers and children remove the seaweed from the swimming areas leaving it really clean, beautiful and perfect for swimming, .

 In addition shops have sprung up offering all you need on such occasions and of course there is the blaring music to keep you up to date with the latest dance hall hits. 

I just hope it remains like this, a good progressive community money earning effort and never again regresses to the stage where some violent idiot with a gun tries to control it all and spoil it for all of us.

Bowden Hill Waterfall

Now I accept I should always listen to Michelle Lowe when she gives an impression of a ride. For after hearing her say that the hill leading up to Bowden hill School was as bad as that going to Peter's rock, I should have gone the easy route with Charles.

But no. I wanted to know the other way to the waterfall and boy did I suffer! I have not for years seen such a long continuous hill. Well that is not quite true as I have seen them but never been crazy enough to try riding up! The only saving grace was that it was overcast so one did not have the pelting sun to contend with. But not since Peters Rock have I pushed my bicycle so much instead of riding!

Every time I thought we had reached the top of the hill, there was another. However I should have been expecting it as when we had turned on to Airy Castle road in Stony Hill and I inquired from a man if the hill was bad he said it was "one rass hill" and it was! And guess who I ran into on the way up just after we crossed over that dilapidated bridge spanning the wag water river. Alvin Mightly, my good friend and the alternate telephone operator and jack of all trades at Power 106. That's his area told me.

The route was strewn with mangoes, lush plants and the beautiful bamboo covered valleys and hillsides were to be enjoyed, but I couldn't because of the suffering to get over that hill.

Anyway, we did reach the tiny village eventually and you know what struck me about Bowden hill district? It only had one church. I have never seen a village in Jamaica with one church before. My conclusion is that those who live there must be nice, decent people. I say this as I usually find most church goers to be the most scheming backbiters under the sun so the less churches there are, the better the people!

But I deviate as I was speaking about our expedition to Bowden hill waterfall on Sunday 18th July.

When we reached the school we discovered that Howie our ride director, had not made arrangements to get the guide to take us to the waterfall which was in the bushes. So we headed off with him as the guide. Actually he would have led us straight there had he not been so easily browbeaten by a woman! For when he reached a fork along the thick overgrown track, I insisted that going left was the correct way.(When will I ever learn that going left is the wrong way?)

Well after that we walked and walked and walked and walked but no waterfall. Some fainthearted hikers wanted to just enjoy sitting in the river but someone suggested that we go back and try Howie's way. In the meantime Michael and Howie decided to follow the river back hoping to find the waterfall along the way.

Well we went Howie's way, found the waterfall and had a wonderful time just in time to get more water from above via a heavy downpour.

I do not know if Howie and Michael have found it yet or even if they found their way back home, for up to when we drove off, there was no sign of them!

All I know however is the next time we are going to that waterfall, there is no way I am going to ride over Bowden hill but instead will take the tried and true route via Hermitage road to the dam.