Hunas Falls

Few days back i got a surprising message from Pradeepa saying that she is organizing a trip to Kandy. I felt not to respond because there is absolutely nothing to see in Kandy. Obviously people like me don’t want to visit places like the Temple of Tooth (just a boring place). Somehow with my objections some of the directions changed and we went to Kandy & Hunas Falls.

We started the trip around 5.30 am on 9th March 2009, straight to Kandy, till the others go worshiping i tried to take few snaps of the ducks at Kandy Lake.

(Ducks at Kandy Lake)

After the others came back we went to this small forest called the "Udawatta-kele" (Udawatte Forest). There is nothing big there either, but it said to be the Kings private forest back in those days :D. By the time we finished the small hike we all were hungry, Saumya has organized lunch at "The Swiss Residence", so all of us went there. It was an amazing place; we headed to the pool before lunch.

(The Swiss Residence at Kandy)

After lunch we finally went to see the "Hunas Falls", it was situated around 30 km away from Kandy but it took us about an hour to get there because the road wasn't good. Now guys i honestly have to say this, Hunas Falls is not worth watching, even though it was raining it wasn't a big water fall; of course from the height its a little tall but the amount of water coming there is soooo little (Like a bathroom shower).

(Hunas Falls)

I have herd the Hunas Falls hotel is quite nice but if you are only going to see Hunas Falls then forget about it.

Dolphin watching at Mirissa

It all started when Jo asked me and Lahiru about Dolphin watching, i had never thought of planning such a trip. Somehow Jo initiated the trip; we set the dates as 11th and 12th of April. But for some wired reason we advanced the tour for a week. There were couple of parties in Colombo but i was ok with going on this trip since this was different ;)

There are 2 famous places in Sri Lanka for Dolphin watching. Kalpitiya is the most famous place, according to reviews and from the people i have spoken to you can see loads of Dolphins there. But there was another place, and it is Mirissa. At Mirissa it’s a two in one journey that is we can see both Dolphins and Whales :). So we planned to go to Mirissa. I and Kushan gathered at Rajeev’s place to discuss on the trip about a week back and that’s where we planned the whole journey.

Been to Hikkaduwa too many times I had some contacts of places to stay. And my personal favorite was “The Curry Bowl”, affordable nice place situated just after the Corel Gardens. I booked the place and Jo booked the van. In this trip the most important part in planning is booking the boat. But we didn’t book any, the reason was the price. If you want to go in a luxury boat trip then book Walkers Tours but it would cost you about Rs. 7500/- per head. Speaking with the people who have already gone for Dolphin watching we learnt that it’s the luck that matters to see Dolphins but not the kind of the boat we go in. So we decided not to take the expensive Walkers tour boat ride.

We started the tour on Friday (3rd March 2009) evening with me, Lahiru, Rajeev, Jo, Lakshika and Shiham. On the way to Hikkaduwa we stopped at a shop and bought Egg Hoppers, that and some snacks we picked up earlier was our Dinner on Friday. We arrived at Hikka around 10.30 pm, though we had to get up early neither of us went to sleep early. We all hanged out a while played the guitar and chilled a bit. By the time we went to sleep it was around 1 am. Next day i got up around 5 am and had to wake up everyone. All of us were ready by 6.45 am and we were on our way to Mirissa. Unfortunately our van broke down. While the driver trying to figure out what to do we went to the beach to watch the fisherman pulling the net ashore. I also went and pulled it with them for a while :)

(Pulling the Fishing net ashore)

After the van driver putting a temporary fix for the problem we got in the van and continued to go to Mirissa. We arrived at Mirissa by 8.30 am. We spoke to a fisherman and he told us not to go at that time because it’s too late. We also felt that it’s late and we told him we’ll come next day morning at 6 am. We got in the van and went towards Hikka, and again the van broke down. This time it was near Unawatuna, we somehow went to Unawatuna beach and let the driver go and fix the van. We went to this little rock mountain near the sea where there is a blowhole. There was only us on that place and we spent about 1 hour there.

(Near the Blowhole at Unawatuna)

After that we went to Unawatuna beach and hired a glass bottom boat and went on a ride to see the corals. Unfortunately most of the corals were damaged :( After the boat ride we straightaway jumped in to the sea :). When we got back we saw a gypsy with a huge python around his neck walking towards us. I never liked the idea of taking pictures with a python around my neck but it happened ;)

Van came and picked us up from Unawatuna around 2.30 pm and we went to Hikka and decided to have the snacks as our lunch. Since we were planning on going to Mambo’s that night we decided to have an early dinner. At this time Kushan arrived to the Curry Bowl and we chilled for a while. Since we still didn’t go on Dolphin watching, I called Dinuka and asked him to come to Hikka; he said he’ll come in the morning. We went to the beach near Coral Gardens and there was a sea turtle. People were feeding it and we did that too, at there we went on yet another glass bottom boat ride again. Corals at Hikka are way better than what we saw on Unawatuna. And there were lot more fish at Hikka too. Everyone was hungry at this time so we went to this awesome place called “No.1 Rotti Shop” That place is unique; I have never had Rotti like that in my entire life. They have all kinds of Rotti, Chocolate Rotti, Prawn Rotti, Chicken Cheese Rotti… you name it its there :)

After having that awesome food we came back to the Curry Bowl and chilled again, played the guitar, sang few songs and it was nice. Time was around 10 pm when went to Mambo’s place, and guess what??? The place was deserted. Though the music was on, there were absolutely no one there. When I was there couple of moths back it was packed. That’s the Mambo’s I expected but it was totally different on that night (must be the off season and/or the recession). Since we had to get up early we played some pool and for an hour and came back and slept.

Got up at 4 am on Sunday (5th April 2009) and called everyone to wake them up, and I called Dinuka to check where he is, surprisingly he was close to Hikka at that time (Normally he never comes on time :P). There were heavy lightning in the skies above sea, but it wasn’t raining in the land. I had a bad feeling but all of us got in the van by 5 am and we were on our way to Mirissa for the second time. Though it was early morning it took about an hour for us to come to Mirissa. It was raining slightly; we spoke to some fisherman and finally got a deal for 10,000/- for 4 hour boat ride. By 6.30 am we started the boat ride. There was a dark cloud right above us and still there were rain drops falling on us for more than 30 minutes. And suddenly skies got cleared and we saw two sea turtles :) and about 5 minutes after we saw two huge Whales.

(Tail of a Giant Whale)

Soon after that we started to see Dolphins all around the place, there were more than 1000 dolphins for sure :) There were three other boats with us who has come to the deep sea with us for the same purpose. Dolphins were very close to all the boats most of the time.

(The Dolphins)

We watched the Dolphins for more than a hour and a half and actually got tired of watching dolphins as there were plenty of them in the sea :P We Decided to end the boat ride and came back ashore.

(The Crew)

It was about 10 am when we came back to the main land. And all of us were hungry; so we went towards Hikka and had Lunch from Rotti Shop ;) Dinuka and his friends stayed at Hikka and the rest got in to the van and headed towards Colombo. Overall the trip was a really good one with a big difference :)

FIA retain their old rules

I was listing to news this morning (22nd March 2009) and I herd the biggest news of the week (probably). It's about the new rule which FIA announced on who would be the Drivers Champion for 2009 Formula 1 Season. In my earlier post i have stated my doubts about this (read the full article here).

FIA had announced that they are going to change the rule on deciding who the Driver's Champion would be in 2009 Formula 1 Season. Earlier it was the driver who gets most number of points becomes the champion, but FIA had changed this as The driver who wins the most number of races who would become the champion. And guess what??? They have decided not to implement this new rule for this season.

Exactly one week more for the 1st race of the Season to begin and I hope every team is doing their best to keep the fans (like me) happy :)

The Beach

It was quite a happening week but unfortunately the ending was boring. It was the 21st March 2009, I was invited to a party called "The Beach" at La Langousterie - Mount Lavinia, a place I have never been before and the crowd; well I haven't hanged out with them before either :D. As I entered La Langousterie it was like a mini version of Mambo's at Hikkaduwa. It is the dream place which you would buy and start a business like a restaurant.

Party was just starting when we stepped in; crowd wasn't bad, mostly ACBT people and few outsides (like me and Udara). The kids seems to be having fun but us; ummm not really. The thing was we weren't with the usual crowd. Luckily Rajeev and Jo came and saved me a little bit but we all got bored at the end. Maybe the music was not very good but we have partied with far worse music; so definitely it’s the crowd that rocks the party.

Remarkable rule changes for 2009 Formula 1 Season

Formula 1 rules evolve every year, that’s one of the core factors which keeps the F1 fans guessing what would happen with the new rules. For the 2009 Formula 1 season FIA has changed the rules remarkably. Slick Tyres were not used in F1 races for around 10 years due to safety reasons but now it’s back in action for the 2009 Formula 1 season. This alone would not affect the end result of the series much however this would indeed increase the excitement of every race, but if the track is wet and with the possible crashes and safety cars coming in to the track it would even slow down the races more than we think like what happened in the 90’s.

Slick Tyre (Bridgestone)

As of technical changes FIA has announced that they would be allowing Kinetic Energy Recovery Systems (KERS) for the F1 cars in the 2009 season. Now this is something huge, again there are both ups and downs. Acceleration wise it would definitely be an advantage but additional weight of the KERS equipment would be a problem for higher speeds. So in general for the tracks which have fewer straight lines than the bends this would be ideal. But I wonder how many teams would be actually using this new technology. As of the movement of this being written, Renault has confirmed that they would be using KERS for the Australian Grand Prix.

And the last but not the least, the biggest change as I see is the deciding criteria of who would be the Drivers champion. Earlier it was the driver who scores most of the points in the season who will be the champion, but in 2009 FIA has changed the rules. It’s the driver who wins the most number of races in the 2009 season will be the world champion. However the rest of the places would be decided on the old points system. This is wired indeed, if this rule was there in the 2008 season then Massa would have been the champion in 2008 though he has got 1 point less than Hamilton.

I have serious doubts with the FIA’s rule about deciding who would be the Drives champion, and we could even expect some twisted results at the end of the series. I believe the beauty of the championship should decide on the last game, like in the 2007 & 2008. But if the new rules are to be applied then the decision would come long before the last race and the final race would have no much excitement :(

Broadcasting a wedding over the Internet

Yup, I know it’s wired but I did it. It was my cousin's (Nilupa) wedding and I had to broadcast it over the internet from Mt. Lavinia Hotel since there was a huge demand for that from my other cousins who are not in Sri Lanka (Specially from Rosi). This isn't the first thing that I have broadcasted live over the internet; the first was Lawyers association annual get together at Holiday Inn. Both the occasions I missed what was happening there.

For Dummies: It isn't hard all you need is a good quality web cam, Laptop and last but not the least the Internet :P

I wasn’t an active blogger during the past month or so, for the time being I’m leaving this short blog entry but there will be some new updates soon, especially after the 2009 Formula 1 season begins :)

Negambo

Negambo is one of the places I have visited least, to be honest I don’t remember going to the Negambo beach in the past. I was invited to the home coming of my old friend Sathya who is also Udara’s sister. The place was Jetwing Blue Oceanic. The invitation card specifically indicated that we should wear casual cloths; I was quite puzzled and called Udara on the day before and asked what that means, he said wear whatever you like and come. Knowing the fellow for the past 20 years I didn’t buy his word. I called Gajan also and planned the thing out.

It was Tuesday (3rd February) after finishing work I came home and went to Negambo with my Father and Brother. The time we arrived there was 8pm, and by that time all the others has come and they already started to party. My Father and Brother left before midnight and I stayed back.

As the time went by a new day arrived, and guess what?? All the people stood up and started singing the National Anthem and there were fireworks all around. Yup it’s our independence day (4th February). We all sang our national anthem together with all others (proud to be Sri Lankan) It was 2.30 in the morning but we are still partying. Around 3.30am we went to the rooms that Udara booked but, NO we couldn’t sleep. We were talking various things about our childhood and stayed up all-night.

In the morning I went to the beach and… wow it’s amazing. I have never seen the sea without the waves. It was like a swimming pool (trust me :P). The fishing boats and everything was different to what we see in down south.

(Negambo Sea and the Fishing Boats)

The environment in Negambo is exactly the same as Hikkaduwa, plenty of Hotels, happening nightlife, the beach and everything. But there was one thing which was different, and that difference was not in a good way as well. It was the food; it was horrible, maybe it’s the hotel we stayed in :( We discussed said same thing about food during the dinner, breakfast and as well as in the lunch. After lunch, we chilled for a while and came flew back home since there were no traffic what so ever.