Off beaten track

For more info on what the Moneragala Chronicles are click here . The Katussa fell from the tree in front of me. As we had taken a general interest in the gamut of wildlife present in the Moneragala area, I walked over to take a closer look. I was a bit taken aback to note that the lizard had apparently injured itself when it fell and had a bright red head. I was even more taken aback when the bright red head turned white. Calling Nuwan over to have a closer look, I noted that it was a bit nervous, scattering through the leaves as I came closer. Nuwan quickly identified the katussa as a somewhat rare lizard known as Calotes ceylonensis , which also goes by the much more lyrical common name of the Painted-Lip Lizard. Notably this species is only found in Sri Lanka and is one of the five lizards of the Calotes genus which is endemic to our emerald isle (as a wildlife geek, I rejoice in such facts as this). We hatched a hasty plan to capture the creature to record its details for posteri

Dive #21 and #22, diving off Colombo with Colombo Divers and divemaster (instructor in training) Jehan Dive Instructor/King Pin Paris and dive buddy Andy from Canada. Cargo Wreck: Bottom time � 48 minutes; Depth � 26.8 meters The sea looked like a giant silver-grey dish as I strolled into the dive center a bit behind schedule. Upul and Ravindra were as usual hard at work loading the boat and I kitted up and loaded my gear as well. The sky was overcast and fisher boats lurked in the light mist looking like ancient Arab dhows as our boat slipped out smoothly through the almost non-existent surf. The contrast between the ocean today and the last few times I�d been out was breathtaking, where the white caps and surges had predominated the last times, today, the boat moved as if it were drifting through silk, grey, smooth, silk peppered rather incongruously with terns perched on any bit of flotsam they can find. Flying fish skittered over the surface while here and there the surface boiled

It was a random conversation over coffee at Commons for a requisite December meet up with the expatriates where the question of water in Batticaloa came up. My mention of our work in rainwater harvesting systems and P�s work in Batticaloa resulted in us taking a trip on the fly to Batticaloa to see what we could do to alleviate some water issues his projects were having in Batticaloa. We left Colombo at a bleary eyed 3am to arrive in Maha Oya at a sprightly 9am, where transporthad been arranged for us to visit the project sites that P and his team were working on. Gunathilake and Jayasuriya were our ebullient and ever so nice escorts on the ride; the guns however did make me a bit nervous as we bounced over the A5. Our transport Driving from Maha Oya to the Batticaloa area was an eye opening experience. We drove through what had been the last checkpoint that separated government land from LTTE control in the bad old days and entered a landscape of lush green and destroyed buildings. (L

Dive #19 and #20, diving off Colombo with Colombo Divers and divemaster (instructor in training) Jehan. Barracuda Reef: Bottom time � 42 minutes; Depth � 23 meters Sinking to the bottom off the reef, I was torn between being annoyed at myself for scraping my knees on the reef as I amateurishly tried to maintain buoyancy and be amazed at the shoal of barracuda  in the near distance. As the yellow barracuda faded into the blue I righted myself, put a bit of air into my BCD and regained some dignity. Barracuda Reef of course lived up again to expectations with Fusiliers swirling, a couple of baby Sri Lankan Hogfish and Timor wrasse putting in appearances. The latter fish is exceptionally beautiful, bluey greeny in colour with bright orange markings all over it. It was also only around 10cm in length and was thus easily overlooked. Having finally gotten some measure of neutral buoyancy I was thrilled to view the Timor Wrasse close up as I hovered above the reef. As we moved along the ree

Getting up at 1.30am has never been my forte. Though this time the prospect of going on a much awaited trip to Kalpitiya, a portion of the country I had never been to, and spotting dolphins, something I had done in California but not in Sri Lanka, did mitigate my early morning grumpiness. The trip was organized by the geniuses at Adventure Lanka , specifically Lasantha , Dhammika and Danushka . And I use the term geniuses with complete sincerity and something akin to awe, simply because they arranged a pretty flawless trip with 24 participants to Kalpitiya, Nawadankulam and Anavilumdawa with minimal complications be they travel or financial. This to someone who used to tear his hair out organizing a four person hike to the San Gabriel�s is something akin to a miracle. Following the early morning pick up, some complications with the vans, four vehicles sped towards Kalpitiya. And I do mean sped, our van driver appeared to be under the impression t

My 17th and 18th dives, also my 5th and 6th with Colombo divers . The dive master this time was Dharshana who was standing in for Shafi because of a bunch of new divers they had starting in the pool. Crown Rock: Bottom time � 27 meters; Depth � 27 meters The boat bounced through the swells towards our initial dive site of Temple Rock, spray sharding off our bow as the boat seemed to go on interminably. On getting to the site the heavy ship traffic in the area made diving there seem a bit risky especially since a rather ominous looking contraption linked to a tugboat that was directly over our site. Prudently deciding that getting rammed by a container ship wouldn�t be too much fun we headed over to Crown Rock, another 10 minutes boat ride away. Gearing up and rolling into the water, I was a bit discomfited to find that water appeared to be coming into my mask. Attempting to clear my mask at the bottom turned out to be impossible due to my heavily congested sinuses, instead of the mask

As a word of explaination, I once spent two months living in a little village in Maragalakanda, close to Moneragala back in 2004. My purpose, living there without electricity or running water, was to study bird diversity in an agroforestry scheme for my MSc. This was when the photography bug first bit so there are some tales worth telling and some photos worth showing, though the latter were for the most part taken with a dinky Canon G3. The first of the Moneragala Chronicles is a slightly edited version of a post I wrote for a blog I used to maintain a long, long time ago. Everybody has those rare moments in life where it all comes together, everything is, for a breathless moment, perfect. One of those moments occurred for me in the backwoods of Sri Lanka in Moneragala where I spent two months in a village doing research for my MSc. After a 5am start which due to unfamiliarity of locations turned into an 8am start, my assistant Nuwan and I took a bone-mashing eight hour bus ride in w

Diving has arrived in Colombo! Sort of� I�m a newbie to the sport of recreational diving but after my initiation to it in the hinterlands of Matara (await a more detailed report on that trip) I have been ridiculously enthusiastic about it. Having a grand total of 12 dives under my belt in Matara, Unawatune, Bentota, Malibu and the Catalina Islands I was beyond excited to hear about diving in Colombo via the somewhat geographically misnomered Colombo Divers , who it turns out are actually located in Mount Lavinia or Galkissa as it is known in Sinhalese. Incidentally the former name never fails to make me smile when I think about (I suggest you do the same if you have no idea what I�m talking about). Full of anticipation, I called Nishan to book a two tank dive, pointing out that I was inexperienced so would not likely be able to dive the 30m sites without serious injury. Hooking a tuk tuk over to Mount on Thai Pongal, I stepped onto a surprisingly crowded beach at 8am. I guess the conc