The narrow road from Pinkande to Katudampe was shiny black newly tarred, clearly marked on the edges with white unbroken lines.On either side we passed lush green paddy fields, houses surrounded by small garden plots with coconut, mango, banana and fruit trees. A solitary young Buddhist priest walked briskly, the bright orange of his robes, matching the setting sun that ...

Elephants at Minneriya, Sri Lanka. Feb.12 2014. Fleeing from Colombo and rushing off to watch elephants, leopards and generally loll among the peace and quiet of a wildlife sanctuary is one of the most desired getaways in Sri Lanka.  Leopard sightings are rare, and stories abound around the leopards and the lucky ones who managed to photograph them. Leopard at ...

Reflections and Refractions by the river at  Katudampe temple, Ratgama, Sri Lanka 8 Feb 2014. Photograph© Chulie de Silva Know all things to be like this: a mirage, a cloud castle, a dream, an apparition, Without essence, but with qualities that can be seen. Know all things to be like this: As the moon in a bright  sky In some ...

It is said that at the time of creation of the universe, when the primordial poison was churned out of the Sea of Milk and transmuted into the amrita of immortality, it was a peacock that absorbed the negative effects. Thus the bird is thought of as a protector, though its flesh is consequently considered by some to be ...

Breakfast stroll, Anuradhapura, Sri Lanka, 25 Aug. 2009 Photograph© Chulie de Silva

Boats at Sunset. Hikkaduwa. 11 Jan 2012. Photograph© Chulie de Silva Sunset and evening star And one clear call for me! And may there be no moaning of the bar, When I put out to sea, But such a tide as moving seems asleep, Too full for sound and foam, When that which drew from out the boundless deep Turns ...

Girl in the bikini on the beach at Siriniwasa, Hikkaduwa, 16 Jan 2014

Mel Gunasekera. Photographer Unknown By Rohan Samarajiva Feb 02, 2014  – On the morning of the first Sunday of February 2014 I felt as though the ground I stood on suddenly disappeared. I learned from a tweet that my friend and leading economic journalist Mel Gunasekera had been murdered in her home. How could this happen?She was in the ...

The primordial sea was very much a part of our life, but it was only recently I learned that the stretch of sea beyond the reef directly in front of our cinnamon stick fence was named Benny’s point  by surfers. Surfer at Benny’s Point. Siriniwasa, Hikkaduwa. 16 Jan. 2014. Photograph© Chulie de Silva On 16 January of this year, I ...

My mother Manel Chitrawathy Kirtisinghe in her mid-twenties. Rephotographed from an original . Photograph© Chulie de Silva Born on 22 August 1922, my mother Manel Chitrawathy was the eldest daughter of Romiel Anthony Fernando, a dashing handsome man and Eva Engelthina Dissanayake, a quiet daughter of the Dissanayake Walauwa, Panadura,   She as the lotus she was named after was ...

Manel Chitra Kirtisinghe22.8.22-17.1. 2014Photograph© Chulie de Silva Some don’t forget and some do- the memory of the past Some cry of sorrow and some sing to forget. Some see in the cooling clouds the lightening of thunder For some, they bring to blossom Their dry garden paths Looking at the stalk of a lotus some see the thorns … and ...

“Shaken not stirred” was my first blog post in November 2007 — a result of getting copped in Bandarawela for photographing school children. It brought forth interesting advice from a very dear friend, writing as N.B.S. Silva ( this was his nom de plume and NBS stood for No Bull Shit Silva), who said if I had any sense I ...

Reblogged from Rice & Curry: I don't usually reprint articles from other blogs in full, but I thought the information in this particular piece was important enough to share. It comes from the blog of one Joel Fuhrman Ph.D., a New York Times Best-selling author and nutritionist. Ceylon cinnamon and Cassia cinnamon  The two major types of cinnamon used ...

Seenigama Devale at dusk. Photograph© Chulie de Silva My father claims that he planted one of the coconut trees at this temple you can see on the old coast road to Galle, in a tiny hamlet called Seenigama. The little temple – a half a mile or so into the sea with a clump of coconut trees is a veritable ...

The reclining Parinirvana statue of Buddha, Gal viharaya, Polonnauwa . AD 1153-86. Photograph©Chulie de Silva The Lonely Planet — the traveller’s bible has given Sri Lanka the number 1 placing as the best travel destination stating it’s best for culture, off the beaten track and is the best value for money. Coral shores and warm blue seas at Hikkaduwa. Photograph©Chulie ...

“if you can spend a perfectly useless afternoon, in a perfectly useless manner, you have learned to live” said a FB post by my friend Joe Qian, quoting Lin Yutang. A power outage meant a move into the cool of the garden. And, here was an afternoon, albeit slipping in to an evening of inky darkness, with my avocado tree ...

The sights, the sounds, the smells, the laughter all came tumbling out when I re-discovered  the photos I took in Nepal in 2005. The young and the not so young, seated in the sun. Photograph©Chulie de Silva This was my first visit to the country of birth of Lord Buddha. Though I didn’t get to Lumbini, I kept thinking this ...

“At six a.m.  I set off for my fifth visit to the Gal Vihara. … like a pilgrim to Nirvana the jungle still dark but with shafts of dawn now appearing. The head of the standing figure — which I like to believe represents Ananda — was haloed with the first light , while the Master was in deepest shadow. ...

All l I wanted to do yesterday was a quickie blog post with the photos I took recently in Galle. But, its no fun staying on the straight and narrow path. So I strayed.  Wonderful thing to do this straying –  intentional or otherwise — it gets you to interesting places — like the Portuguese who drifted into Galle after ...

I watched them walk down the road for a long time.  Or at least it seemed like a long time. Mother and daughter Akashi at Hikkaduwa. Photograph© Chulie de Silva The mother and the child the mother held, standing, embracing one another across the road.  I got closer to ask her name — Akashi like the sky. It was but a brief conversation. “She wants ...