Stick Fishermen Pretending to Fish with Sticks.
This is an emblematic image of Sri Lankan culture (i.e it's on the front of the Rough Guide!) We were invited to meet the fishermen by a guy from Helen's village, which was cool because it made it vaguely less voyeuristic, as we had a chat with them, and gave them some bananas to snack on. It was a pretty sad situation because an oil spill 2 months ago has killed off the fish, and the fishermen now rely solely on tourists paying to take photos of them pretending to be fishing. So we gave them some money, and hopefully the fish should start coming back...
The Sinhalese arrived in Sri Lanka late in the 6th century B.C., probably from northern India. Buddhism was introduced beginning in about the mid-third century B.C., and a great civilization developed at the cities of Anuradhapura (kingdom from circa... ... read more 
