Arugam Bay II

I’ve been to Arugam Bay before in its tourist season and it’s an absolute beauty. The waves the wind and everything was so perfect. However in the raining season it’s not the case; you cannot even go out because of the rain. In the raining season it’s very hard to find a day without any rain. Thanks to a weather forecasting website I was able to find a day without any rain. It was 26th December 2009; the day is exactly 5 years after Sri Lanka was hit by the Tsunami in 2004, and surprisingly Arugam Bay is one of the very first coasts to get hit by the Tsunami in Sri Lanka.

A set of old friends of mine was planning on a trip and my initial idea was to go to Hikkaduwa and have some fun, somehow the destination happened to be ‘Siyambalanduwa’ a place where many people haven’t been to. Siyambalanduwa is closer to Arugam Bay, just 30km away to be precise. So we planned a three day trip, the route we chose was a little long. We started the journey in the early morning around 4.45am from Colombo on 25th December 2009. We were near Rathnapura by 7.00am and we went to Bambarakanda waterfall, the tallest waterfall in Sri Lanka. It was about another 40km off our route. We went to the waterfall and had breakfast there. After that we went to Diyaluma waterfall, the 2nd tallest waterfall and probably the most famous waterfall in Sri Lanka. We didn’t make a stop there like earlier because the waterfall was clearly visible from the main road.

Bambarakanda waterfall

Diyaluma waterfall

After watching the waterfalls we continued our journey to Siyambalanduwa. We stayed at Piyum’s house at Siyambalanduwa. In the first day we didn’t do anything other than watching the two tallest waterfalls. We went to bed early as we were planning to go to Arugam Bay in the next day morning. We got up early and went to Arugam Bay. The sea was not beautiful as before, there were no surfers and it was not much crowded. But fortunately my forecast on rain was correct, it was not raining and the skies were clear. December is not the season for tourists but by 11.00 am there were many local people coming to Arugam Bay especially from Colombo to enjoy their long weekend.

Arugam Bay

Since the lunch was already arranged at Piyum’s place at Siyambalanduwa we left the beach early, on our way we went to an ancient place called ‘Magul Madu Viharaya’ and headed back to Piyum’s place. Passing ‘Lahugala’ we saw a wild elephant, they were very close to the main road. First we thought we were lucky to see an elephant around but then again we saw many wild elephants on the way.

In the third and final day we visited another historical place called ‘Biso Kotuwa’ a big swimming pool of ancient times :D. The route we chose to get back to Colombo was even longer than what we used to come to Siyambalanduwa. But it was even better, we came through ‘Udawalawe National Park’. The Udawalawe National Park is a paradise for elephants. We saw about twenty individual elephants here and there.

A wild Elephant at Udawalawe National Park

It was raining heavily throughout the journey way back to Colombo; however we managed to get back safely around 7.00pm on Sunday.

Return of the Master: Schumacher

The news cannot be much better for the 2010 Formula 1 Season. Michael Schumacher has returned to Formula 1 after 3 years, well he was there with Ferrari for the past 3 years as an advisor but not as a race driver.

Schumacher will be racing for Mercedes (formally known as Brawn GP) alongside Nico Rosberg; another German Formula 1 star that raced for Williams in the previous season.
There have been lots of changes in Formula 1 this time, the rules, the teams, the drivers and pretty much everything.

While Ross Brawn remains as one of the team principals, I hope Mercedes will come up with a competitive car for the 2010 season.

An Illustration of 2010 Mercedes Formula 1 car

Finally, welcome back Shumi :)

Indoor Cricket

I’m not a fan of Cricket except for watching those 20 over matches. Udara asked me whether I’m interested of playing some indoor cricket. He has already booked the Indoor cricket court at Austasia and invited myself and my brother to come with them. Me and my brother were on our way for something else and luckily it finished early. So we came to Austasia.

Playing Indoor Cricket at Austasia

Indoor cricket is something different to outdoor version of cricket we know. The rules are totally upside down. However playing indoor cricket for 2 hours is quite a workout.

Batch Trip - 2009

After we left school most of our batch mates got together at the Batch Re-Union, there we talked about organizing a batch trip, so it finally happened.

We booked a hotel called 'The Paradise' at Negombo just for a spend a day. Not everyone who came to the Batch Re-Union was there for the trip but most of them were present. We were planning to start the trip early as 8.00 am but we were able to leave Colombo after one hour delay, however it was not a big issue as Negombo is just 30 kilo meters away from Colombo.

We arrived at the hotel before 10.00 am and had a lot of fun till the lunch time. After the lunch nothing interesting happened since all of us were tired by then. Finally we left the hotel around 4.00 pm.

TNL OnStage 2009 - Finals

TNL OnStage 2009 - Finals held at the SLECC. Like the last year a special performance was done by ‘CivilizationOne’ and it went extremely well. ‘CivilizationOne’ had to come on stage for the second time as they couldn’t ignore the demand from the crowd.

There were some bands performed equally well, the winning band was ‘Five Minutes Apart’ and the winning soloist was ‘Sam’.

A new Formula 1 champion

Yes it is Jenson Button from Brawn GP, a team which did not exist 6 months back has done it. It’s not only the Drivers championship, from the constructor’s championship game Brawn GP has won the race as well.

The 2009 Formula 1 season is not over as yet, the last race of the season will be held at Yas Marina Circuit – Abu Dhabi. From the Drivers standings Sebastian Vettel and Rubens Barrichello are fighting for the second position while Lewis Hamilton and Kimi Räikkönen are fighting for the fifth position. The Abu Dhabi GP will be another unique race since it’s the first ever twilight race in Formula 1.

As the end of 2009 season arrived and there isn’t much for me to celebrate my focus has already gone towards the 2010 season. For the 2010 season there will be 4 new teams joining and sadly BMW will be leaving Formula 1. Fernando Alonso will be moving to Ferrari replacing Kimi Räikkönen. Robert Kubica is moving in to Renault to fill Alonso’s position. McLaren will most probably be dropping Kovalainen and look for another driver to support Hamilton. McLaren’s former driver Räikkönen would be ideal for them but surprisingly McLaren are considering Jenson Button as a candidate too. I don’t know why McLaren would think of Button since Räikkönen is already available for them to grab. And McLaren has totally forgot it’s the magic of Brawn GP which helped Button to gain the drivers title :D

Back to playing Basketball

It has been over 5 years since I haven’t played basketball. I did try once last year when Udara came back to SL. That day I almost fainted after playing for 5 minutes so that doesn’t count :D

My new RBK Basketball

I went to Reebok and got myself a new Basketball (which has Allen Iverson’s signature on it) and initiated basketball practices again. Dinuka has invited couple of his friends from school and we played some good 2 hours of basketball on Saturday, 10th October at my old place called 'The Church'

I rested the whole Sunday and even at the time of writing this my legs still hurts.