Tangalle and around

Tangalle is on the South coast of Sri Lanka, quite remote and very quiet. The beaches are almost deserted (especially during the monsoon period), we did very little except go and visit one of the local temples. It was Wesak festival at the time so there were only about another 1 million people there. It's the location of the largest Buddha statue in Sri Lanka. There was also a perehera happening just as we got there. You'll also see some mangrove seeds before they fall, and then once they've dropped and stuck in the mud and started sprouting, very clever. A frog that decided to come and say hello one evening in the shower. Wesak Full moon is here somewhere too. Follow this link to see the full album and my other albums

Rain, Rain, Rain....beautiful rain?

Well we've had a few weeks of hard monsoon. Culminating last week with some of the heaviest rain I've ever seen, the monsoon in full effect, and it just kept going and going, more water coming out of the sky than I would have thought possible.

Here's what one of the roads looked like in Colombo. Pity the poor coppers stood in the middle 'directing' the traffic! Thanks to Chris Dharmakirti for the picture.

Galle road

In a Car on the way back from Hikka, and got the driver to turn off the a/c and we wound the windows down and took pictures from our moving vehicle as we went. He'd turned up 1.5 hrs late, and then proceeded to drive like a crazy fool for the whole journey back. Difficult to take pictures when the cars moving in this bizarre jerky-brakey-acceleratory kind of way. Plus the added joy of all the other suicidal maniacs that so make the Galle road a pleasure to travel along.

Here're some of the things we saw. .

Should call this bikes of Galle Road really.

Here's some other stuff that isn't bicycles.

The things that are missing: drug crazed bus drivers overtaking another bus that is already trying to overtake yet another bus, all with hands glued to horns and a refusal to stop even though there's nowhere for you to go to avoid death. Trucks doing exactly the same thing, potholes the size of the grand canyon and traffic police.

Hipstamatic shots

This is an iPhone app called 'Hipstamatic', turns your phone into a retro camera, whereby you can choose the film type, lens and flash. The results are wonderful, here's a sample. These were taken on a weekend away in Unawatuna in the south of Sri Lanka.

Street scene, black and white, high contrast

Waves splashing on the rocks at the blow-hole in Unawatuna, Sunset.

Shop front on Galle road

Hikkaduwa beach scene, taken at speed out of the car window.

lunch at the UBR.

see the rest of these shots here in my Picassa web albums