The Martin's Blog

Tom – It is a Buddhist Holiday.  Poya means full moon so there is a Poya Day every 28 days and it usually corresponds with a festival and procession (Perahera) somewhere in the country.  Today’s Duruthu Perahera was to take place at the Kelaniya Raja Maha Vihara (Temple) just outside Colombo.  We were told they were not having the procession because of security reasons but planned to incorporate it with the next one which takes place in Colombo on February 20.  Duruthu Perahera celebrates a visit by the Buddha to Sri Lanka.

We were up at six and drove to the Independence Memorial where we left the car for a two hour walk to and around Beira Lake in Colombo.  A very pretty Buddhist Temple, Seema Malakaya, is built in the lake.  It’s a shame the lake is polluted and the walkway around it not cared for.  I took some nice early morning photos as the sun rose on the two island pavilions.  We also took off our shoes and walked around the perimeter of the small island.  One pavilion is filled with Thai bronze Buddhas and the other is centered around a Bodhi tree (the kind of tree under which the Buddha found enlightenment).  There are additional Buddha statues there as well as four Brahmanist figures in separate small rooms, one in each corner.  I took a picture of each of the two that were open.

The afternoon was spent doing the diary and packing for the move to Matara.

Ranjan invited us out for an early dinner.