Food and Shelter

Day 034 of Our Winter:  Today was a poya day. It really doesn't seem possible there's been time for two since we arrived in Sri Lanka. The day of a full moon is a religious observance for the Buddhist majority in Sri Lanka and generally a slower day for businesses.   

The bakery tuk-tuk came along just at the right time for us to run out and purchase some fresh roast paan for breakfast.  I admit it looks like a simple slice of toast, however it represents a sort of Sri Lankan 'institution'. This bread is available island wide and it is baked as separate balls in a bread pan and finally roasted on all sides.  So the very edges are crispy but the bread middle is very chewy.  Jay always mentioned that it's not for old people.  However with his newly added dental crown, he can say as he wishes.  It's so popular that the Sri Lankan food store in Surrey, British Columbia even offers roast paan for ready customers.

An interesting thing today was the picture I snapped below.  A few weeks back I took a photo of a land monitor, a type of lizard that grows to a meter and a half long.  I snapped a baby climbing the garden wall.  We saw it hanging around on the light pole just along the edge of the road and property.  The following picture that I took today shows just its tail hanging from street light.  It seems it has found a temporary little home.  It surely won't be able to use this space as shelter when it grows up! 

That's all for this Thursday although there were probably dozens of things I could have written about.  

A Net Connection and One's Location

Day 033 of Our Winter: It was a perfectly relaxing day with nowhere to go and nothing that needed to be done. We did throw a load of wash into the machine and put it out on the line to dry. I guess that would've been my photo opportunity of the day but I missed documenting that. 

Rather, I spent a great deal on my phone looking at 2025 television technology. This is what I added on Whatsapp to a friend back home. 

"You never commented about your new TV. I've been using my time to try to catch up on where the tech has gone over the last six years. AI is extremely helpful for scouring reviews and making comparisons into tables. Changes that used to take decades is now accelerating over a much quicker timeline. I think the profound shift in viewing choice selection is going to be the developing news story of 2026. That will be in the software side as much as hardware."

Even though we've only been home for four of the last six years, I'm thinking it'll be time for an update when we return to New Westminster in the spring.  Our last screen was dropped off at the apartment during our COVID quarantine.  Screens seem to have improved so much during the interim years.

I've also spent a lot of time looking into replacing my old mini- Nvidia Shield with a new Google streamer.  By the time I'm ready to buy, Gemini AI should have replaced the old Google Assistant on those devices.  I'm guessing until the end of the decade, software will continue to profoundly change the experience of how we choose what we watch.  

With an adequately robust Internet connection, one's location no longer dictates what one spends time learning about.  Weird, eh?  So, rather than any photo showing the beauty of Sri Lanka, this is the living room here as I complete this journal entry.

 

Now 45 Kms North of Nugegoda

Day 032 of Our Winter:  Jay and I came back to Minuwangoda today. We didn't leave unitl around noon. We got the smallest rideshare car category but we had more to bring back than just us. A lot of food goes back and fourth between the sisters' places. The car that arrived was the tinest Suzuki but we had no trouble fitting us and the stuff inside.

   

We came back vis the Expresway E3 which connects Colombo to the international airport. It took us around an hour and a quarter but most of our time was spent getting out of the Colombo suburbs. Once on the fast road it was ... well ... fast. 

Interestingly, there were no tolls. The entire expressway system is currently free as there is so much emergency and reconstruction aid running about the country. As the Minuwangoda house is closer to the international airport, we also saw extra helicopter traffic carrying relief supplies to flooded areas.

We saw a few flooded neighbhourhoods as we travelled here in our rideshare today.  Along the road from the airport to the house we passed a section that was flooded during the cyclone.  We heard that tourists and other passengers trying to get to the airport had to take small boats to waiting shuttles.  I guess the road was flooded just a few kilometers from the runways.

I loved staying in Nugegoda with the urban conveniences.  Jay's elder sister is an excellent cook and a great host.  However, it is also nice being back at the house that has a bit of land and nature surrounding it.  As I was having afternoon tea, I snapped this picture from my chair on the porch area.

A Missing Piece of Our Puzzle

Day 031 of Our Winter:  Today, Jay and I went to a shop that photocopies documents and prints from PDFs. We are old enough to still like having travel plans verifiable as a stack of paper when we go somewhere for a whole winter.

Even though we often check into hotels with just a phone in hand, it's comforting to know that there is a paper version in the carry-on verifying every flight and nights' stay.

The guy printed out about 12 regular documents in black and white and put Jay's sisters' multiple-entry Dubai visas in more impressive colour.  He included a few large envelopes for good measure and we paid him the equivalent of nearly a US dollar and a quarter.

Just before going, we realized a missing piece of our winter.  We are set to spend a couple of weeks in the Gulf, first on a cruise and then with a week shopping and sightseeing.  However, we leave on the 12th and that means returning before the New Year.  In order to have it a winter we will really remember, something would be required for first hours of 2026! 

We've been in Sri Lanka for celebrations in the past. In fact, a couple of years ago, Jay and I went to Negombo and stayed in a beach hotel.  However, everybody in Sri Lanka knows that the real place to welcome the New Year is along the Galle Face in Colombo, the capital.  Thousands arrive alongside the ocean for musical shows and fireworks!  So, we bought two hotel rooms just meters from the action on the evening of December 31st.  The sisters have never been out on New Years Eve!

In other news, we got to the see new street light come on at dusk tonight.  Jay's sister phoned the municipality about the burnt out bulb a week ago.  Then the cyclone came and kept electricity crews hopping.  As the installer said, this one would be brighter. I think it'll keep the plants growing all night now!

 

Jay and I will be going back to the Minuwangoda house tomorrow. Jay's sister will join us back there when our Dubai trip gets closer. The house is very close to the international airport and so it makes coming and going from there easy.

Vihara Maha Devi Park

Day 030 of Our Winter: When we saw sun this morning, we knew that the storm was finally gone.  We ate a leisurely breakfast.  As we'd been pretty much confined to the house during the recent cyclone, we ached to get out.  Jay suggested that he and I go to the Vihara Maha Devi Park.  It's a large park in Colombo, Sri Lanka.

We used the PickMe rideshare app and decided to go by tuk-tuk.  As it was a Sunday, the traffic would be light.  In fact, it was perfect taking us only around 20 minutes to get to the park that is fronted by the Colombo Town Hall which opened in 1928.  

Jay and I had visited here once on my first visit to Sri Lanka in 1986.  I love Colombo because of the old, planned sections.  This park was originally laid out during the British period and was called Victoria Park.  During World War II, the area was occupied by the British Army and was used as a base by the Australian 17th Brigade.   During the 1950's it became a park again and later in the decade was renamed for Queen Viharamahadevi, the mother of the famous Sinhalese King Dutugamunu.  He reigned from 161 to 137 B.C.  The name change was a symbolic way to celebrate Sri Lanka's own history and culture.

The space is around 50 acres or 20.2 hectares in a beautiful part of Colombo called Cinnamon Gardens.

We spent a great morning under blue skies, so different from the recent days of unusual rain caused by the retreating cyclone.

Jay and I continued our walk by stopping at the Cenotaph War Memorial.  We walked onwards towards the edge of Biera Lake.  We entered the huge Central Colombo Mall and bought some soft drinks in a supermarket inside.

I have quite a number of other photos from our 5K walk, but I think I'll just use these fourteen images. They're from just the park. That's a large number for a single journal entry!

Life After the Cyclone

Day 029 of Our Winter:  I imagine that a lot of people are starting to clean up today. At around 5:30 am, Cyclone Ditwah continued north of the island of Sri Lanka. We didn't get much sun today but it wasn't hard to see the storm had passed. 

Things weren't affected much around the capital area. People were out shopping and the roads busy today. However, the electricity at the Minuwangoda house has been out for more than 30 hours. Trees have fallen on the wires along the Kopiwatte Road meaning that whole neighbhourhood is without power. Still.

Interestingly, here in Nugegoda, some guys came to fix a burnt out light street light bulb. This is not storm related because it was out the day before the storm arrived. Jay's elder sister said it hadn't needed to be changed for years. As there is so many crews out fixing storm related outages, I think they contracted the guys that came today. They asked if we had a mallet. He used a regular ladder and knocked out the IP TV for a few minutes while up on the pole. The real indicator was he had no gloves and little in the way of safety equipment. 

Still, we have little to complain about, especially considering the destruction encountered in other parts of the country.

 

Jay called the dental hospital and rescheduled yesterday's appointment for one at 13:00 today.  He was back in a jiffy as they only had to glue in his crown.

In other news, I was able to pay for my visa extension online today.  Jay wrote an email as he got his the other day and we'd filled out the online forms at the same time.  Now, I'm legal from December 2nd, one month after our arrival, until December 12th, when we head to Dubai for a couple of weeks.  

Jay and I irritatingly discovered this extension, unlike the original, is not multiple entry.  So, we essentially paid for two months worth of visa that will expire when we leave Sri Lanka after just 10 days!  We didn't luck out this time.  We have to apply and pay for a whole new one-month visa while in Dubai in order to come back here.

Sitting Out the Storm

 

Day 028 of Our Winter:  This is the second day that we stayed inside. Cyclone Ditwah has been dumping record amounts of rain on Sri Lanka. Extensive damage has occurred in the mountains to houses and infrastructure.  The coverage on local TV news has been extensive. Around 56 people are known to have died and approximately 20 people have been reported as missing.  

Cyclone Ditwah is on its way up to India skirting along the east coast of the island  That's the usual trajectory for the season and these storms usually cause flooding in Bangladesh. The severity and large affected areas make this one unusual.  It encircled the whole island.  This is an usual situation and the last storm of this magnitude occurred over twenty years ago.  Sri Lanka is often compared as being a bit smaller than the size of Ireland.

The area near the capital has been less affected than other regions.  Most businesses closed today and this meant Jay wasn't able to go in for the fitting of his dental crown.  We have had it easy here compared to those who have become homeless or worse.

 

Too Much Rain / A Dinner of String Hoppers

 

Day 027 of Our Winter:  Today has been a completely wet.  That is unsual here.  It can rain like hell for twenty minutes but often the sun returns soon afterwards.  The cyclones in the Indian Ocean have set rainfall records on the island of Sri Lanka. This is supposed to the most rain received in Sri Lanka since record-keeping started. This is because the entire island is receiving rain rather than during traditional years where two separate monsoon seasons, months apart, provide rainfall to the the east and west coasts. 

This area near the capital is probably the least affected. The news programs surely had lots of large-scale flooding videos. Dozens of people have lost their lives.

Our only inconvenience was we pretty much stayed put.

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I'll add a few photos of yesterday's dinner.  If you follow this journal regularly, you'll remember Sri Lankan hoppers in a recent entry.  Today, we had red-rice string hoppers.  Many people make traditional white ones too.  They are composed of the dough extruded into thin noodles on special 'trays'.  They're then steamed to make the thin, hand-held patties.  

Different foods can be eaten with them and they soak up liquids easily.  My plate is always spotless after eating string hoppers.  Tonight we had with a mackerel fish curry and cooked coconut with added dried shrimp, 

Getting Ready for Steaming  

Getting Ready for Eating