Bird-eye view of Sri Lanka

If you are travelling to Sri Lanka or a nature lover haven't even heard about this beautiful island, these nature documentaries are for you.

Ocean of Giants

Land of Lakes

Forest of Clouds

Sri Lankan Food Culture and Habits

"Raata-Raata", A Sri Lankan TV program on food culture and habits in Sri-Lanka. Very interesting. Enjoy!
https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCSXtdScsbJqtOhmmMwNdU6w/search?query=raata+raata

Measuring the Livability

Every year, I come back to Sri Lanka for 5-6 weeks to meet my family during the new year season. Every time when I am back in Sri Lanka, I think what has been changed compared to the previous year?, which aspects have been improved? and do such improvements affect the livability of Sri Lanka?.

When it comes to the livability, I am concerned and believe on three things which are absolutely important. They are,

• Do people respect other people?
• Do people respect the law of the country?
• Do people respect money?

But, how do I measure them? I just observe three simple things when I commute via public transportation.

• Do motorist stop when pedestrians wait beside crosswalks?
• Do motorist and pedestrians oblige to traffic lights and signs?
• Do bus conductors give back the right amount of change back to commuters?

If I get “Yes” for at least one question, I would say "Yes, the livability is improving".

Now some of you might think these observations are minor crimes with little impact. The rationale for choosing these observations was the Broken Window Theory. I am a big believer of it. This theory explains how minimizing minor crimes of a society creates a better atmosphere of order and lawfulness, thereby preventing more serious crimes from happening.

When flight tickets get cheaper in advance - v2

In When flight tickets get cheaper in advance - v1, I wrote a Google App Script with Google Spreadsheets to track when flight tickets get cheaper in advance. In that script I weekly tracked the minimum return-ticket price from Sydney to Colombo for a fixed departure date (07th of April 2014). In this post, I improved the script and automatically calculated minimum return-ticket price from Sydney to Colombo daily for last 8 months without restricting to a fixed departure date. These details say, for a given date, ticket prices get minimum in advance of 110 days in average (given that you have no preferred departure date).
Here you can find the spreadsheet which contains up-to-date data-set and followings are the charts extracted from the data-set.

When flight tickets get cheaper in advance - v1

I wrote a small Google App Script with Google Spreadsheets to track when flight tickets get cheaper in advance. I weekly tracked the minimum return-ticket price from Sydney to Colombo for a fixed departure date (07th of April 2014). The answer was, ticket prices get minimum in advance of 5 months in average. Due to the disappearance of Malaysian airliner, MH370, I noticed a sudden fall of Malaysian air-line ticket prices after 8th of March 2014. So I added two charts. 1st one doesn't includes deviations related to MH370. 2nd chart includes the relevant deviations.

Wishing you a very happy new year 2012!

Since it is the festive season of Sinhala and Hindu new year for all Sri Lankans, I wish you all a happy and prosperous New Year 2012!. Also my team is celebrating the new year dawn with their loved ones except for few guys at on-site work outside LK.

With just the beginning of the vacation, we spent few days at Heritence Ahungalle, a beach hotel on the west coast of Sri Lanka. I had a luxury suite thanks to a good old friend from school days :). But we spent most of the time in the swimming pool and the beach due to the hot and humid weather.
Also the hotel is quite renowned for its sustainable building architecture by Geoffrey Bawa.

Related Posts

• http://ddweerasiri.blogspot.com/2012/01/2012-has-arrived.html
• http://ddweerasiri.blogspot.com/2011/04/wishing-you-very-happy-new-year.html
• http://ddweerasiri.blogspot.com/2010/02/happy-new-year-sri-lanka.html

Diving into the blue - Sri Lanka

I was diving in a 10-12 meters depth of down the ocean floor where roughly 1km away from Hikkaduwa coast line. My ultimate target was to capture some cool pics of coral reefs and fish. So I stopped for a while and took some and moved on. After a few seconds I got a bad leg cramp and I looked around for my buddy for the help. At that moment I just realized my buddy has already swam out of my visible range. It was also dangerous to swim to surface suddenly due to huge pressure difference. I waited for a while and little by little reached to the surface. I met my buddy there and he helped me to recover back.
That’s my most recent experience and a foolish mistake I made while diving.
Sometimes unexpected could happen anytime. On the same dive some thing that happened to me twice was, the camera in my hand was tangled with the air regulator without knowing and the regulator popped out from the mouth when I swung the hand :).
And here are some uncut clips from the dive.

Anyway there’s a whole new world under the ocean. But it’s something hard to predict from outside and feel it. You have to go underwater and see what’s out there.

Getting things ready

Off-season Sri Padha(Adam's peak) hike

Recently five friends at WSO2 and I hiked-up Sri Padha(Adam's Peak) during the off-season. It was my 2nd hike to that mountain during the off-season. During the off-season the site was very much peaceful as usually pilgrims don't walk up the mountain due to heavy raining, strong wind, lightning and thick mist.
Adam's peak is an important pilgrimage site especially for Buddhists. Unlike in pilgrimage season (December to May), we had to take precautions and we had to prepare and bring all the food and stuff required up to the peak of the mountain. As there's no electricity until the peak of the mountain, we prepared for that as well. We climbed-up the mountain via a shorter path which is Hatton route and climbed-down via a longer path which is Rathnapura route. We started to climb-up the mountain around 2pm and it took around four hours. While climbing-up, it was raining all most all the time, but we didn't experience much of a wind. We were the only team to stay there for that night. And the next morning we worshiped and walked around the peak. We couldn't see the sun-rise due to thick mist. Only for few seconds we saw very far away mountains but those views were vanished in seconds when thick clouds covered the peak. Then we climbed-down via Rathnapura route and we experienced some strong wind. Though Rathnapura route was quite longer it was more beautiful as it was lead through a lush green jungle.

At the peak

Wishing you a very happy new year

First of all I like to Wish a very happy new year to everyone. This is the festive season of Sinhala and Hindu new year all for Sri Lankans. So is the WSO2 team also celebrating the new year dawn with their loved ones except for few guys at on-site work in US.
Before starting the vacation we stayed few days at Heritance Kandalama Hotel. The climate was kinda calm but hot as Colombo. So I spent the afternoons swimming and during morning I spent on sightseeing around the hotel and the lake. Evening time was almost spent on playing cricket with friends.
I went to this hotel when I was a kid, but I think now it's more greener and more closer to wildlife. (Don't put anything in balcony unnoticed as monkeys are gonna drag them away definitely :))

As well the hotel is renowned for its grand architecture which is well blended with the natural environment by Geoffrey Bawa.
After the trip, I moved back to home. I'm happy that my family still respect new year rituals.
And I’m happy as all my family get together after a long time.

Related links - Happy new year Sri Lanka!

Hike to Thotupola Kanda

Few months back, I and few friends of mine went on a hike to Thotupola kanda, which is the third highest mountain in Sri Lanka.
It was kind of interesting, but had to walk almost 34km throughout the day.
We started the journey from Colombo, around 8pm so we can reach the starting point in the next morning.
My friend; Rohan Wickramasinghe the most travelholic guy in the team had reserved 2nd class tickets. But unfortunately he had reserved them for the next date. So finally we decided to travel on 3rd class and move on.
3rd class service was not that good for a long journey like that. Anyway it was quite an experience.

On the way to Ohiya...

When the train moves towards up country; it needs an extra engine to be coupled. So at Rambukkana and Pattipola, the train is stopped for several minutes more to couple and decouple the extra engine.

Coupling and De-coupling...

After pattipola, we reached to Ohiya; one of the highest villege in te Badulla district in SL and high 1774m above sea level.

In Ohiya; there was a small shop and the shop owner rented one room of his home for us. We rested there for a while and started our hike.
Initially it was sunny and windy. We could see the far beyond the horizons.

But the sunny part left us and suddenly it became so foggy.

On the way to Horton plains...

After few hours we reached Horton Plains.

It’s a cloud forest filled up with fresh and raw green with beautiful flowers.

Also there are many species which are endemic to the region. But we couldn’t spent much of time for them.
We walked over the green a lot of time until we reach the junction which leads to Thotupola Kanda.

Then we started to climb up our target. By the time it was rainy + windy + foggy.

When we reached the peak of the mountain; it was as foggy as we couldn’t see much around.

After having lunch around 2pm we climbed-down the mountain and slowly walked towards the Pattipola railway which is the highest railway station in Sri Lanka. Our plan was to catch a train from Pattipola and to go to Ohiya.

Fortunately or unfortunately when we reached there, train had already left 10 min ago and there were no trains for the day. So we had to walk from Pattipola to Ohiya (around 8km) via the railway which was never planned.

There is a place called “Summit level” which is highest pot of Sri Lanka and which is 1898m high above sea level.

At summit level...

By the time it almost was getting dark. But the craziest issue was to pass the railway tunnels which are dark and filled with bats every time. If a train came when we were half on the way through the tunnel, we just had to lie down on the muddy ground and stay away from the rail tracks as much as possible. But the gap between the train and the tunnel was so thin. So we had no clue what we should do if a train came.
Believe me; this was really dangerous and we didn’t have many torches or even people didn’t live around. Later I got to know that due to security reasons passing the tunnel by foot is prohibited.

Inside the "Tunnel 18"...

On the way we passed through around 3 tunnels and 2 bridges. The three tunnels are different from each other and one of them is the 3rd longest rail way tunnel in Sri Lanka; which is called Tunnel 18.

I'm at the Tunnel 18.

Tunnel 18th is very especial one because every time it's very dark. Lot of bat lives in there. This tunnel is a bending one. Tunnel was made by 1919 and after some times it was repaired. On the tunnel there is a mountain called Nasdanda mountain. Near this tunnel there is another two Railway tunnels. One of them is very short and bend and other one is very long and direct not bend one.
Main important thing of Pattipola tunnel 18thTunnel is both sides of this tunnel is different. This tunnel divides Badulla and Nuwaraeliya districts, Border of Welimada and Nuwaraeliya Electorates, dry Zone and Wet Zone, Green forest zone and highest west gap zone.
When you through this tunnel from Ohiya side you feel somewhat hot and you can see the sunshine and see clear air. After you move Pattipola side you feel different than that. Now you feel very cool and you may be able to see sunshine and you can see the mist come and covered every places in there. However if you can feel changing whether zones like that, you're very lucky.

Even passing a bridge was tricky in a darker environment. After a one and half hour walk we reached to Ohiya. The time was around 7pm.

So we stayed the night at Ohiya and came back to Colombo via train in the next morning.

ICT in Sinhala/Tamil or English

Today I was preparing few presentation notes on ICT subject for O/L , A/L students and those for an upcoming ICT awareness seminar series to be held in some schools in rural areas, Sri Lanka. So obviously the content is supposed to be in Sinhala and Tamil medium. When I went through the Sinhala teachers' manual, all most all the content have been explained well, and the editors have done a great job. As well they have taken a great effort to use our own terms instead of English terms.

But what I felt was whether we will able to generate our own knowledge base at least a glossary in our own mother tongue, for a subject like ICT. For subjects like Chemistry, Physics which are more theoretical the case is different as we have our own scientific terms which were generated a long time back.

But for a subject like ICT, the field is changing rapidly, so the existing information get updated rapidly and new information, technologies pop-up like crazy. So it's quite impossible to generate our own terms, with the present pace of change.
It's a good move if the students are motivated to use English terms themselves rather force them to remember the Sinhala terms. Because after they leave the school, those Sinhala terms are not gonna be valid for them anymore.
 

Happy new year Sri Lanka!

For the past four years, I usually spent the new year's eve at my boarding place with my colleagues as we get ready for exams in the upcoming month of January. (Though it's not official, January seems to be a month for the final semester exams in my university :)).
Though we were away from our homes, somehow we got the chance to celebrate the new year with few of traditional new year foods at our boarding place.

Normally for Sri Lanka , the new year falls on April 13th or 14th every year. Food is the essential part of New Year festivities in Sri Lanka. Sinhalese food is very rich in nutrition. They prepare sweet meats such as mung kavum, konda kavum and unduvel. There is also an old tradition of preparing Kiri Bhath (milk rice) with rice.
Even though Sri Lankans also celebrates new year's day on January 1st as well.
 

University of Moratuwa on top of the world in GSoC

The University of Moratuwa (UoM), Sri Lanka became the top of the world in Google Summer of Code 2009 with 22 students accepted for the second consecutive year.
Google Summer of Code (GSoC) is a global program in which Google awards stipends to hundreds of students who successfully complete a requested free software / open-source coding project during the summer.
Congratulations for all the UoM GSoCers for raising the UoM flag up once again.
I'm very proud to be among the top Sri Lankan GSoC 2009 winners, together with my colleagues from the Computer Science and Engineering Department from University of Moratuwa.
This is because the Computer Science and Engineering department of University of Moratuwa promotes the students to participate to this competition. Especially the open source software organizations like WSO2 Inc. and Lanka Software Foundation promote and guide students on applying for GSOC. Though there is very few open source software organizations located in Sri Lanka, the contribution they have made with the participation of University of Moratuwa towards this remarkable success is marvelous.
Finally I congratulate all the Sri Lankan students who were accepted and completed their GSoC projects for last 4 years and made this small island, Sri Lanka into a rising star.

For more Details Google Open source blog.

Related blog post - My first hands on experiences on Google Summer of Code

Remarkable performances made by Sri Lanka in GSOC

When I went through the Google Summer of Code statistics for last four years I observed the remarkable performances made by Sri Lankan students. Especially the University of Moratuwa has become the top university for the number of accepted students for GSOC projects over the last four years with a count of 57.
This is because the Computer Science and Engineering department of University of Moratuwa promotes the students to participate to this competition. Especially the open source software organizations like WSO2 Inc. and Lanka Software Foundation promote and guide students on applying for GSOC. Though there are very few open source software organaizations located in Sri Lanka, the contribution they have made with the participation of University of Moratuwa towards this remarkable success is marvelous.
Finally I congratulate all the Sri Lankan students who were accepted in GSOC for last 4 years and made this small island, Sri Lanka into a rising star.

Eco Equilibrium - Photo of the Month

Location - A rural area in Anuradhapura, Sri Lanka.
Camera - Sony CyberShot W130

Machan - The Sri Lankan movie

-->Machan
Director -Ubertho Pasolini
Producer – Prasanna Vithanage

It is not more than ten films which are consideably good, are introduced from the Sri Lankan film industry for every year. From the perspective of the Hollywood, Bollywood, European or even South Indian film industry, we can't be satisfied as Sri Lankans. But out of those movies some are marvelous.
Recently I watched “ABA” by Jackson Anthony and “Machan” by Ubertho Pasolini. I believe both are major milestones in the Sri Lankan film industry. Both were massive productions. “ABA” came into the arena with a lot of good and ban criticisms and discussions which made “ABA” mass profitable.
After the file “Machan” came into the arena, it was not such a mega blast as “ABA”. I believe that is because of the differences between the advertising campaigns.
But according to my perspective I believe “Machan” has one of the best script and a story in the history of Sri Lankan film industry. From the name itself it grabs our attention. The movie “Milla Soya” by Boodee Keerthisena was also based on the same kind of a story.
It talks about a lower social level. Some guys struggling for their day to day life have an ultimate goal to jump to Germany. They try their best in legal ways. Then they organize a Handball team called “Sri Lanka National Handball Federation” for a German tour and when they get their all of them get vanished.
The film is based on a true story and director is able to go through their lives and present it to the audience.
The powerful script forces the audience to believe that the key characters has an option less solution, jumping to Germany.
One of the greatest thing I see in the script and the direction is there's a lot of humor through out the flow of scenes, but it never change its key theme. However at the end humor gets vanished through the truth of sorrow. The main actor “Stanley”(Dharmapriya Dias) and his best friend are used for political poster campaigns. But for those political revolutionists “Stanley” and his friend are not worth than even for a poster.
“Stanley” stuck with many problems. He has no any permanent job, he has to look after his two grand mothers and his brother and his sister are also caught in troubles because of “Stanley”.
Other than that, through out the whole movie the great humanity deposited in those street people are depicted well. “Stanley” worries about his brother, a child worker and his sister who is waiting to go to middle east as a house maid by leaving her family. As well the script tells us in their struggling for living there is no difference between any nationality, all are the same.
Concerning performance of actors, most of the major characters are not so popular. But their contribution is amazing. Some minor characters also have contributed a lot to make the film more glamorous.
But I believe the audience could get more satisfaction if the quality of the sounds and the pictures were more richer.