Devotees braving the weather at the famous shrine in Kataragama

A normally calm, quite and dark residential lane gets transformed on Vesak day with people bringing out their vesak lanterns.

Last year’s vesak was at Great Western. In 2007, I forgot to take a photo!

The other day, I showed you Sri Pada (or Adam’s Peak) from a distance – as it can be seen from Colombo on clear days. This shot was taken at Great Western from where you can catch a glimpse of the holy mountain on a daily basis.

This photo was shot in 2006 and first appeared in my now defunct ‘Sri Lanka is Happening’ blog. It was from the same place the the government stole the Colombo Fort photo.

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.

“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

That’s me and my father. I am the one on the left.

Club Palm Garden in Beruwala is not the same as the Club Palm Bay in Marawila.

Is it Wesak or Vesak? I am never really sure.