Monday
I woke up and went right to the poolside. About 7am, I wanted to have some quiet time and go for a swim. It was so beautiful, the pool is very nice and clean. The bottom of the pool is tile, it feels good on your feet. Not like the grainy pool bottoms we have. The pool area sits on high ground and juts out a bit into the ocean. The view is spectacular. I had been sitting only a few minutes and I was joined by a few more fellow yellow shirts. So much for the quiet time. Just teasing, it's also nice to have company. We ordered some coffee and chatted. A little while later more people joined us, we had moved a few feet from our original table where we had coffee. There are big crows every where. At home and in Sri Lanka. I think they could be the world bird. Like the eagle is the national bird.
Just a few yards away from us, someone spots a crow and says, does that crow have someone's money? I look up and he has what appears to be a neatly folded piece of paper in his beak. And he just stands there. We are trying to figure it out, when another crow walks by he also has a rectangular piece of paper in his beak. I say it looks like they have business cards. Now you must know that Sri Lankans are always trying to exchange addresses with us. Anyway someone else says well if the next crow approaches us with a pen, we're out of here. Soon there were a few more and we realized they were getting sugar packets out of the little ceramic box on the table where we had our morning coffee. They proceeded to very neatly open the sugar packets and feed each other sugar.
What a hoot! I spent the morning swimming and sunning.
Some of the girls from the village stayed at the hotel and I played with them in the water just a little bit. I tried to teach some to swim. But mostly I relaxed and soaked up the sun. It was time to leave and say good bye to the rest of the village and one of the ladies from our group, actually our eldest member 75 yr old wasn't feeling well so I stayed back at the hotel with her. Which is fine with me, I don't like good byes anyway.
I went to the bar and got her a ginger beer. That’s what the locals drink for indigestion. Hopefully she feels better soon. It's such a pain to be sick when you are not at home.
I don't think that I ever mentioned beetle nut. It’s something the men and some women chew here, it makes them high. They actually wrap this nut in some green leaf and chew on it. You can easily tell the beetle nut chewers, they have red stained teeth. Not too cute.
