Yesterday we were at a temple in Matara, Sri Lanka. One area hosted a reclining Buddha statue which was quite impressive and was surrounded by old 3D reliefs of the stories of his life. Something else there caused me nearly as much contemplation as the religious teaching, for surrounding the upper temple building was a two-foot wide, two-foot deep moat. In it were coy fish, lots of coy. I would estimate a count in the hundreds. Each side of the building was probably 10 meters wide, so the fish had access to a good run of at least 40. I sat to watch. These overgrown goldfish swam around and around. Some were in groups which would suddenly stop and then change directions. In the limited time I watched, none appeared inclined to swim the complete circumference. A little to my surprise, they appeared to quite enjoy coming across other schools going in the opposite direction.
It seem these fish were destined to travel to and fro.
At the moment I'm typing this in Minuwangoda. We spent the day moving about. We had considered getting up the coast by train, but as we were set to start at 8:30, it didn't make sense to rush to the train station and then have to wait for the 10:15 to Colombo. We sat aboard a Colombo-bound bus from 8:45 am to 1:20 pm. Many, dare I say most, of the people reading this have not experienced travel like we did today. It can be beyond discomfort. Passengers are literally squashed together for extended periods of time. It is noisy and dirty. It can be loud due to the equipment or music over poor quality speakers. The driving is dangerous and it really is through the grace of God that more folks do not die. We ate a quick lunch in Pettah and boarded another bus headed to Minuwangoda. This one took just one hour. However, bus after bus in both directions of this road and every other where packed with Sunday travellers.
It seems these humans were destined to travel to and fro.