The best thing one can do when it raining is to let it rain.

Henry Wadsworth Longfellow had bastards for parents, as surely as it rains in Sri Lanka he got beaten up at school for a name like that. But he did provide the aforementioned quote that I name this blog entry after. When it's raining, theres nothing you can do but let it rain - and that is even moreso the case in Sri Lanka, for when it rains it may not stop for some time. Embo and I decided to get out on the Australia Day long weekend, and headed inland to a little place called Dambulla. Just outside of that skanky town is a beautiful resort called Kandalama, designed by a famous Sri Lankan architect Jeffrey Bawa. To put it in perspective, he's Donna D'Cruz's favourite architect. I don't know who she is either, but that's not the point. He is fantastic at blending the surrounding environment into the designs of the hotel... and Kandalama is his best. It's 1km long, 7 stories tall, and barely noticeable hidden within the rocky hills behind, the forest in between, and on the the Kandalama lake/weir. Trees grow within the hotel, monkeys walk along the balconys scarying unsuspecting Emma's, and the infinity pool trails off so it appears it is part of the lake. If you're ever in SL, definately make sure you spend a night of luxury in Kandalama..

As mentioned though, unfortunately, it rained rained and rained some more. Our plans to climb Sigiriya? Washed away. Our plans, ahem, my plans to go birdwatching and walking through the forest? Rained out. But where there's rain, there's a rainbow.. and Emma and I did play a heck of a lot of ping pong, and abused the buffet as bad as the jacuzzi.

This is what our view looked like.. often we would sit on those chairs and have monkeys walk along the barrier. They weren't exactly nice little monkeys, they wanted to seek revenge on us for taking over their oasis:


Here's the tacky entrance to Dambulla caves, a holy site for buddhists or something or rather. they claim that's the biggest buddha in the world, but there are like 6 bigger in Sri Lanka. It was donated not too long ago by the Japanese:

Inside the five caves is pretty cool.. lots of frescos and statues, some are over 700 years old or something:
Outside the caves, the monkeys are getting jiggy withit doggy style (feel free to include monkey style in your repportoir boys, sounds more animalistic!):The thinking monkey, "How am I going to seek revenge on Emma.....":

You thought I didn't take any bird photos., yeah? yeah, right! There was this one morning where it stopped raining for a couple of hours and I jetted outside.. unfortunately, it started raining shortly after and I ran back squeeling like a baby, "My camera, my new camera, god dam you gods of rain!". This is a funky funky dude with electric eyes I spotted while pondering on a rock, the Ceylon Paradise Flycatcher:


This dude was haunting me, but I finally got close enough to the Common Iora to get a quick snap - even if the bushes were in the way:


Up above were Brahminy Kites flying all around. Due to the grey skies, hard to get the brown and white of the bird to stand out.. so I messed around with the photo on Adobe and this is what I came up with. I kinda think its cool... whatchyareckon?
These dudes were everywhere. No, its not that time of the month, it is a Red-vented Bulbul eating a jungle rodent:

Here's another R-V Bb taking a dip:

My little friends, the Little Green Bee Eater hanging about.
After all that birding and twitching, it was back to work. And although I don't have a PhD so I can't technically be a "Doctor", it didn't stop me from scrubbing up on Monday to check out some cataract removal operations at the Colombo Eye Hospital. The PJ's were a little bit small for me; I think I might need to consider donating some smocks as part of my next project.
Welp, that is all from me my ardent readers. Tune in next time for some more racially and gender insensitive comments.

Peace, Love, and Scrubbers,

B.