proximity to the east

Please don't forget that the Polonnaruwa district borders both the Batticaloa and Trincomalee districts. While the lodge is within minutes of four wild life sanctuaries namely, Minneriya, Kaudulla, Horoluwewa and Somawathie and a little further is the Wasgomuwa and Maduru Oya sanctuaries, the proximity to the beach is even more exciting.

Once the widening of the main road from Maradankadawala to Batticaloa is complete, Passekudah Bay is just about 70 minutes away, and I can rekindle my memories of the 60's in Kalkudah and Passekudah where we used to go often. Nilaveli Beach will also be about the same time once the checkpoints have been removed as the road widening from Trinco to Nilaveli is well in progress.

With the proximity to Dambulla, Anuradhapura and places in between is also appreciated, one can hardly dispute why a resurgence of the Polonnaruwa era is well overdue as it is central to the northern and eastern parts of the country that is ripe for development in a non threatening way.

While unpatriotic forces are at work in trying to develop an airport that is dead in the water before it even gets off the ground, an international airport in Hingurakgoda make more sense as it is at the center of the future development of Sri Lanka with new road constructions making it easily accessible from all the places mentioned above.

What are we waiting for? lets get a move on!!

another Ratmale sunset

ratmale tank

latest photos of kitchen construction

entrance door made from kumbuk

The Kitchen construction phase

In the usual fashion in Sri Lanka, everything has to take its own course, and however hard I try to rush it all work on the kitchen construction is at the pace of the Baas who this week had to collect his wife who returned from the Middle East and then the normal procedure of taking her to his village, as they live in her village and all the customs attached thereto to be followed before he gets down to work on this project,

My schedule is limited and trying to coordinate with a schedule which always says he will come tomorrow and does not come is how things happen as the word I cannot come is not in their vocabulary!!!!

I have earmarked two rather unattractive trees by the kitchen to be cut for the wood for the main beams in the room, so that I can grow some more old growth trees instead in this space in the future, hopefully with little damage to the environment. Such is the uniqueness of the site where the bricks were made around the corner, the rocks quarried about a km away and the wood from the property, with the cement and roofing sheets coming from afar, as I have decided once and for all to put sheets instead of the coconut thatching which is short term. I would have like to use tiles, but the monkey menace where they are on the roof all the time needs to be taken into to consideration in making these choices.

Living rough on my own on Ratmale has been an experience, as villages don’t want to leave you alone even spending the night in the verandah on the floor because it is far more pleasant than in bed in their homes, all closed up and hot, while here is open and breezy with the windy season in full swing.