This I must admit is a cliche photo but the beach here certainly is well worth a visit specially if you have kids. You can wade for at least 10 meters before the water level comes upto your knees. You can wade another 50 more before it goes over your head.

When we visited Club Palm Bay, Beruwela a couple of months ago, the kids loved it. They loved it so much that they have been pestering us to go back and that’s just what we did on the weekend of the 27-28. This time the visit wasn’t so fun as last time around – half the – the left wing on the picture has been closed off for refurbished. This photo was in fact taken on the last visit, now the left wing is boarded up. That means fewer guests and I think they have let go of a few of the temporary staff due to that fact. That meant the service and the food had deteriorated. Still the stay was pleasant enough and we probably would go back there someday.

My little daughter Aminthika standing next to the giant chessboard at Club Palm Garden. Earlier the board was setup incorrectly by the hotel staff. I had seen a few people playing on it without even noticing that the setup was all wrong. I corrected the setup and made the first few moves of the Sicilian Defence Najdorf variation on it. Not that any of the staff or guests would recognize it but heck, I got a kick out of it.

“The chessboard is composed of an 8×8 grid of 64 equal squares alternately light (the `white` squares) and dark (the `black` squares). The chessboard is placed between the players in such a way that the near corner square to the right of the player is white.”

That’s from the Fide Rule book. You can’t expect these hotel animators to know what FIDE is let alone the FIDE rules more commonly known as the rules of chess. So they have set the board up incorrecty. But how often have we seen incorrectly setup boards in magazines (not related to chess) and advertisements? I remember seeing a full page ad in the newspapers by a bank sometime ago with the board setup exactly like above. The adjoining property, the Riverina is also a hotel that belongs to the same group. I have been there once many years ago (15 years to be exact) but I still remember that they have a large chess board as well and that too was incorrectly setup