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Negombo

 

Our penultimate stop of the trip - prior to Colombo Airport - was Negombo.

On a more secular level, on our way back to the coast, we stopped at this place for lunch at the café. It was hosting a wedding planning exhibition and in its own way was fascinating - as was the bizarrely incompetent management of the café. Like an episode of 'Fawlty Towers'.

 

Sri Lanka 42

Since we had descended from the highlands, rice had again replaced tea as the predominant crop. It's the staple and almost entirely for domestic consumption. These days it's mechanically harvested and bagged, replacing several steps of back breaking manual labour.

Other important crops include rubber, coconuts, palm oil, bananas, and pineapples, as well as a variety of other fruit and vegetables.

 

Sri Lanka 43

 

Here we had a visit to the fish markets; walked with goats; and relaxed at the Goldi Sands Hotel (resort).

Time to go home.

 

 

 

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Travel

Bali

 

 

 

 

 

At the end of February 2016 Wendy and I took a package deal to visit Bali.  These days almost everyone knows that Bali is a smallish island off the east tip of Java in the Southern Indonesian archipelago, just south of the equator.  Longitudinally it's just to the west of Perth, not a huge distance from Darwin.  The whole Island chain is highly actively volcanic with regular eruptions that quite frequently disrupt air traffic. Bali is well watered, volcanic, fertile and very warm year round, with seasons defined by the amount of rain.

Read more: Bali

Fiction, Recollections & News

Christmas 1935

 

When I first saw this colourized image of Christmas Shopping in Pitt St in Sydney in December 1935, on Facebook  (source: History of Australia Resources).

I was surprised. Conventional history has it that this was in the middle of the Great Depression. Yet the people look well-dressed (perhaps over-dressed - it is mid-summer) and prosperous. Mad dogs and Englishmen?

 

 

So, I did a bit of research. 

It turns out that they spent a lot more of their income on clothes than we do (see below).

Read more: Christmas 1935

Opinions and Philosophy

The demise of books and newspapers

 

 

Most commentators expect that traditional print media will be replaced in the very near future by electronic devices similar to the Kindle, pads and phones.  Some believe, as a consequence, that the very utility of traditional books and media will change irrevocably as our ability to appreciate them changes.  At least one of them is profoundly unsettled by this prospect; that he argues is already under way. 

Read more: The demise of books and newspapers

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