I'll close out Sri Lanka by trying to augment Betty and Eugene...

We finally learned a bit more about Sri Lanka further than it has nice beaches. We had a very long bus ride to the beach and our tour guide gave us a history of the city of Colombo on our ride to and from the Blue Water Resort, so I will share with you, at last, something of the area, other than "gorgeous beach."

As Colombo possesses a natural harbor, it was known to Greeks, Persians, Romans, Arabs, and Chinese traders over 2,000 years ago. Muslim Moors whose prime interests were trade, began to settle in Colombo around the 8th century AD mostly because the port helped their business and controlled much of the trade between the Sinhalese kingdoms and the outside world. Their descendants now comprise the local Sri Lankan Moor community.

Similarly to the way the Europeans came in and took over North America from native Americans, they did the same from a group of native Sri Lankan's called Sinhalese. The Sinhalese are an Indo-Aryan ethnic group native to the island of Sri Lanka. They constitute 75% of the Sri Lankan population and number greater than 15 million of the island's population. The Sinhalese identity is based on language, historical heritage and religion. Most of Sri Lankan people, though, are Buddhist, followed by Hindu.

Portuguese explorers first arrived in Sri Lanka as far back as 1505 to propagate Catholicism and targeted the Sinhalese. During their initial visit they made a treaty with the Sinhalese king enabling them to trade in the islands' crop of cinnamon, which lay along the coastal areas of the island, which included Colombo. As part of the treaty, the Portuguese were given full authority over the coastline in exchange for the promise of guarding the coast against invaders. They were allowed to establish a trading post in Colombo. Within a short time, however, they then expelled the Muslim inhabitants of Colombo and began to build a fort there in 1517.

Then, the Dutch came through to spread Dutch Reform and captured Colombo in 1656. Although the Dutch initially restored the captured area back to the Sinhalese kings, they later refused to turn the lands back over and gained control over the island's cinnamon lands including Colombo. Later, the British captured Colombo and made Colombo the capital of their newly created crown colony of British Ceylon.

The Dutch created Dutch law and income and the British added to many of the newly established Dutch customs and laws until Ceylon gained independence from Britain in 1948. Due to the tremendous impact independence caused on the city's inhabitants and on the country as a whole, the political, religious and cultural  changes that resulted at the end of the colonial period were dramatic and periods of severe unrest ensued through the 1980s.

In 1972, Sri Lanka (meaning the beautiful island) changed its name from Ceylon as a means of further eradicating its connection with the British System.

This has left Sri Lanka as a third world country and a socialist democracy, with 10 percent unemployment and 5 percent at poverty level. They depend on loans to exist and are rebounding from the tsunami that devastated the area. Key industries include textiles, glass, cement, leather goods, furniture. Their number one export are people--house maids to the middle east and men as semi technical labor. This is followed by garments, gems, tea and tourism. Even though it is a developing country, it has a 90 percent literacy rate. All education through university is free; however, only 10% get into university, which is determined by an exam.

Interestingly, while Colombo is Sri Lanka 's largest city and its commercial, industrial and cultural capital, since 1978 Colombo has no longer been its capital and Sri Lanka's administrative functions have been moved to Sri Jayawardenepura Kotte (try pronouncing that), which is close to Colombo.

As we drove through neighborhoods and towns, most signs were in English and one I particularly enjoyed was "your tax rupees at work." We noticed that major hotel chains currently exist in Colombo such as Oberei, Taj and Hilton. Hyatt and Shangri-La are opening up new hotels in the next couple of years in the area around the foreign  embassy area overlooking the ocean. I didn't see major building or development, nut there were modern world trade towers and the hotel development is promising. The tour guides were professional and did their best to be well organized. Their English was easy to understand. It is clear that they want us to come back to Sri Lanka.The city is very tidy and clean, with very little litter if any. Motor bikes and tuk tuks were everywhere and driving around many of the rotaries was treacherous.

As far as food...Bananas and coconuts hung from many stalls. Sri Lanka is the home to three varieties of coconut..one green on the outside for cooking, one yellow on the outside for drinking, and one red on the outside for medicinal purposes. We enjoyed another wonderful buffet lunch at the resort and were very impressed with the delicious curries, fried prawns, salads, fresh fruits, desserts. The pineapples, bananas, passion fruits, and guava were fresh off the vine and fresh limes were cut up for squeezing over them. I'd never had bananas with lime before, but it was great. They also had wonderful long beans and lotus root curries which were seasoned just perfectly.

We arrived the day before their New Year  (an "auspicious" time as our tour guide kept repeating) and all sorts of preparations were being made along the towns. This is a cultural event that takes place on 13 and 14 April. The festivities include many events and traditions that display a great deal of Sri Lankan culture. Sinhalese New Year, generally known as Aluth Avurudda in Sri Lanka, is the new year of the Sinhalese people in Sri Lanka. It is a major anniversary celebrated by not only the Sinhalese people but by most Sri Lankans. The timing of the Sinhala New Year coincides with the new year celebrations of many traditional calendars of South and Southeast Asia. The festival has close semblance to the Tamil New year, Thai New year, Bengali New Year, and Oriya New Year festival in India as it is governed by the horoscope. It is a public holiday in Sri Lanka.  According to Sinhalese astrology, New Year begins when the sun moves from the house of Aries to Mesha Rashiya. It also marks the end of the harvest and spring. The first day is a religious event, then it moves on to the exchanging of money at the "elder" person's house, and the preparation of coconut milk rice. The milk is allowed to overflow the pots to signify prosperity. Families buy new clothes, fireworks kick off celebrations and it is a major event.

The average climate here ranges from 72 to 88 degrees with a fair amount of humidity. Many folks walk around with umbrellas to ward off the sun. Being a tropical area, they do have a monsoon season. Even in the heat, we saw many cricket games going on and lots of cricket fields. With its ties to Britain, the most popular sport in Sri Lanka is cricket. The country were champions of the 1996 Cricket World Cup and became runners up in 2007 and 2011.

Frangipani trees were everywhere and it was the first smell that struck you walking into the resort. They had frangipani petals floating in bowls and candles for sale. The hotel was lovely, appearing to be a five star resort with a large swimming pool settled in a vast green lawn dotted with huge palms. The resort was separated from the beach by a fence and the flag indicated a dangerous surf. Doug and I asked the lifeguard if we could go in and he said yes. Off we went, running over the very hot, sandy beach to the waves. The beach sand was not fine and was littered with small shells. Again, the water was bath water warm, the waves not too harsh, but we were surprised at the extremely strong undertow. We had to keep hold of one another do as to not be pulled very far.

Today, we arrived in the last country of our adventure. India. It's a lovely port and we have two days here.