Blogs from Sri Lanka, Asia - page 115

Next - well, some replies to the last blog indicated that there is an interest in the work that has been going on - as well as the holidays! So, here goes. Most of the focus for my work here for the Diocese has been in the area of Religious Education , or rather Christian education/Christian nurture. Having travelled alongside the Global Citizenship programmes as well as Church linking programmes up until this year, this new focus has been both narrowing and insightful. Christianity here is a minority faith - Sri Lanka is 70% Buddhist, 17% Hindu, 8% Muslim and 8% Christian - so this is Christianity in a post-colonial,south Asian context of pluralism and multiculturalism - a Christianity which lives in the context of religious plurality, multiscriptures and also in the context of poverty, struggle ... read more

Friday 19th His… Woke up early and checked out of our guesthouse, ready for our two hour bus ride to Dambulla, an inland town surrounding the “Cave Temples“. Half an hour into our trip and Miranda needed the toilet, we had coped just fine up until now with the public transport because we had used trains with toilets, but on a bus we had no choice but to get off and then wait for the next one. All the buses coming past were too full to fit us and our massive backpacks on so we ended up opting for a tuk-tuk instead. About ten times the fair of the bus but meant we could stop and buy food, water, use the toilet and look at things of interest. The driver was a nice guy as well ... read more

Monday 15th Feb. Day 2 in Hikkaduwa. I spent the entire day in bed…. No, I did not have dreaded food poisoning, it was instead self inflicted alcohol over indulgence. Jarrod cruised around going on a few walks and kicked back on the beach front. Our hotel has little cabana things on the beach which are pretty comfortable and nice shade from the hot sun - averages about 33 degrees at the moment. It does cool down at night though, and the few degrees makes it easy to sleep, especially with no AC. TIP OF THE DAY: Buy spray on sunscreen and insect repellent - means you are not just rubbing the dust and dirt even further into your skin with a cream. ... read more

Hello again! Firstly, thanks so much for your messages and emails! So glad you like (and are reading!) my blog!! Love hearing from you guys, even though I can't reply sometimes... :) Oh and I won't have a cell until I get to the UK on March 8th. Anyway, I have to refer back to the journal I've written, because we've been doing so much it's hard to remember what order we did them~ Friday, 12 February - The night after we went to the Elephant Orphanage in Pinnewela, we caught a bus north to Anuradhapura. Anuradhapura is quite a small town but has quite a few good sites. The first day there we went to the Archeological museum, visited the Dagobas/Stpas (bell-shaped Buddhist monument), and some ancient ruins. We also did a lot of monkey-watching! ... read more

We left Dalhousie after a big breakfast and headed to Kandy. Our guest house has a wonderful view of Kandy lake and the Temple of the Sacred Tooth Relic and was a great place to relax after a busy day with a pot of tea. We headed to the Temple of the Sacred Tooth Relic in time for the evening puja. The temple houses Sri Lanka's most important Buddhist relic - a tooth of Buddha. The tooth was said to be snatched from the flames of the Buddha's funeral pyre in 483 and smuggled into Sri Lanka during the 4th century. The heavily guarded room was opened at 6.30pm for the followers and tourists. The tooth itself is kept in a golden casket shaped like a dagoba which contains a series of six dagoba caskets of ... read more