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Published: August 6th 2010
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Saturday, July 31st
It was wonderful being on the tour, coddled and shepherded around with the group but it’s a very satisfying feeling to also be independent - half to prove that we can and half because the adventures that happen unplanned are often the best part. Outside of our window fishermen boats lined the bay. We had breakfast at a café with our toes in the sand which somehow always makes things taste better.
Unwatuna’s beach is on a beautiful bay. We had heard that the sunset over jungle beach was spectacular. Even more charming was the path through the wild life that we could take and get there in no time. Half way through the jungle we realized two things. One was that if we were going to watch the sunset then we’d have to return after the sun had set in the dark and we stupidly hadn’t brought our head torches with us and second was that without a guide we were making up the path as we went along. The sun started to set and we found ourselves deep in the jungle beginning to panic. Eventually after lots of scraping and
At The Festival
See the hooks in his back?! climbing and foraging through the trees we landed onto a family’s backyard and they were able to point us in the right direction to the Peace Pagoda we’d been looking for the whole time. Of course upon seeing the Pagoda we also saw the paved road that might have been easier to take - but not as exciting of course. Nevertheless it was dark and the idea of walking back alongside the highway on a route we hadn’t taken before. Out of nowhere (or perhaps a gift from above) came a monk in a truck heading down the road and out of instinct mom’s thumb shot up and we hitched a ride back. There are much fewer monks around these days with 98%!l(MISSING)iteracy people are more interested in business than spirituality.
Sunday, August 1st
We had a busy schedule planned starting with teaching English at the temple Sunday School only to find out that due to the festival it was canceled as was the yoga classes we had looked forward to taking. Instead, being ever resourceful, we found out about a local orphanage and hopped on a tuk tuk over there. As we
arrived a boy with a limp and a smile opened the gate for us and mom and I looked at each other, anxious that we were in over our head. It turned out to be the home for mostly mentally challenged people of all ages. One might imagine it to be incredibly depressing and uncomfortable. Instead it was the highlight of our day as everyone was so friendly and eager to shake our hands and introduce themselves. The orphanage had been started in 1961 but the benefactress had died and now they were self regulating - a feat we found truly impressive. The place was clean and ran art therapy, physical therapy, music therapy and even flower therapy. We also visited the school on the premises and were shown the water levels from the tsunami which reached almost as tall as we were. Tragically they lost 40 people and now 65 remain mostly between the ages of 7 and 15 years old. They get $1,300 rupees a month (which is about $13 US dollars) per child per month from the government. The man who showed us around grew up there and was wearing a tee shirt that read “Hakuna Matata”
At The Festival
Making the alms which seemed to sum up the situation very well.
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Kesh
non-member comment
nostalgia
thanks for uploading all these photos and the travel blog, it took me back to my childhood when I was in Galle, the time of the 'esala' festival in Unawatuna. Good to hear you enjoyed your stay in Unawatuna, my favourite place in the whole world :)