Ceylon
Shirley at Jungle Beach near Unuwatuna Extract from a journal. April 1st 2013 Hotel Flower Garden, Unuwatuna, Sri Lanka Shirley's plane arrived ahead of schedule and I was there to meet her following a morning taken up with entertaining little Sadali in Negombo. We travelled south to Galle in the hotel's minibus - very comfortable, watching the green Sri Lankan countryside drift by - buffalo, small tea plantations, people ambling along dirt roads, shack-like houses hidden by lush tropical trees. After some hassle about room allocation at the hotel, we went down to the beach where we met a man called Keechua (phonetic spelling) . He was touting for business re. scuba diving trips. He told us, in graphic detail, of the day of the tsunami in 2004 and how he ran to higher ground to save his family but returned to his sea level home later to find his father's dead body floating in the kitchen. His mother was found in the bedroom. Keechua started to weep and I rubbe...