Another beautiful day after at night of rain and we finished doing some shopping and loaded up in a van to take us to Jenny and Steve's in Kalutara on the beach of the Indian Ocean. This establishment Marigold Beach House Marigold Beach House was basically the only building in the area that survived the tsunami as it was two stories and made of concrete. Steve and Jenny partnered up with a Sri Lankan man and gave him money to fix the place up in hopes that they would have a place to stay and the man could earn some income from people staying here. However, Ranjith (the SL man) hardly trusts anyone except Steve and Jenny's friends to stay here so not making the money they thought they would. This place is the only place the closest to the beach because now there are more laws in place that buildings need to be a certain distance from the beach due to the tsunami. There 4 bedrooms with each their own bathrooms and a small kitchen and sitting area on the first floor, that would sleep 8. And on the second floor more like an apartment sleeps 3, kitchen bathroom and a beautiful balcony overlooking the ocean. This is where Jenny O and I are.
We walk one way on the beach to a resort for cocktails and another way on the morning for coffee. We usually eat lunch next door at Paradise (free wi-fi) and dinners are at different places.
The days have been beautiful. The waves are big but today I went in. Undertow strong, water warm.
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| Coconut anyone? |
Just hanging around the beach, listening to people's stories. Heard a first hand story about when the tsunami hit in December 2004. This lady Barbara, British was hear with her Sri Lanka husband (that's another story in its self). On this side of the island the first wave hit about 9:15 in the morning so people were awake and saw the water reach to their homes and move their small furniture and possessions around. So at this time people took older people and children up to higher levels - past the train tracks to the main road was higher ground.
When Barbara and Sumi her husband came back to their restaurant on the beach they watched the water being sucked back to the sea, they saw the ocean water pull back about 100 meters this exposing the ocean floor completely, seeing all the rocks, coral, bare bottom of the ocean floor. This unbelievable scene unfortunately drew a lot of people towards the ocean (Sumi and Barbara saw it but were smart enough to start moving to higher ground) and then in the horizon people saw then humongous wave coming towards them at full speed. There were a lot of injuries of cut legs and broken legs but fortunately no one was killed as it was morning and they were aware of a danger. Unlike the people in the south that the tsunami hit at about 4 in the morning. Once they returned everyone's possessions were gone floating to other area, large boats were stuck in people's buildings. Whatever people found they kept for themselves even though they might have known whom it belonged to.
Fabulous sunsets:
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