The Bentota Days - Day 3

I had done some Googling and found that there was a Buddhist temple close by so I woke up early and walked the 20 minutes to the 1734 era Kande Vihara temple. The walk was pleasant with many quaint houses in a quiet neighborhood both sides of the road, a railway crossing and finally the temple which is on a hill. A huge golden statue of the Buddha appears on the hill. 

There is a Vishnu temple behind the Buddha idol, idols of Shiva and others. People were lighting incense sticks, pouring oil into lamps and lighting them, offering baskets of fruits to the gods. Families, school kids, college going kids were all visiting the temple early in the day. 

I returned from the temple and after a hearty breakfast we hired a boat to explore the lagoon. We didn't realise it was a mangrove, thick with vegetation and animal life - our boatman Merwyn showed us a crocodile, huge monitor lizards, kingfishers, monkeys and so on. It was a beautiful 45 minute boat ride. He offered us adventurous activities like feeding the monkeys or holding a baby crocodile and posing but we declined. We were happy to watch him to these things while we clapped.

On our return from the boat ride we went our ways - Naresh into the water and me walking along the beach. A good 45 minutes later I returned and we read our books until it was time for lunch. 

Post lunch I stayed up to watch the heavy rain and finished reading 'The Comfort Crisis' by Michael Easter which was a very interesting read. All hopes of a long walk were dashed as the rain didn't abate like in the previous days. I made notes and fought off sleep.

In the evening we gravitated to the sports bar where Naresh tried to teach me snooker and we played a game. Then we settled down to listen to some lovely live music. I requested the young singer to sing 'Words' and he obliged.  He sang well unlike the guy who sang the previous day.

 

Then a lovely dinner and back to 128 for some more reading and chatting and relaxing.