Philip and Michael are running around on the beach, catching crabs in the dark with a flashlight. We are sitting on the beach terrace of the place where we stay, the Galaxy Lounge. We are waiting for our dinner. Tonight they are making a barbecue. An old man lit a fire close to the beach some time ago and we saw him recently with a giant banana leaf with food in, heading for the fire. We look forward to our dinner...

Philip in one of the hammocks at the beach bar.

Bed time story under mosquito net in our cabana.

This morning we organized a van to take us from the mountains to Arugam Bay at the east coast of Sri Lanka. During the trip, the temperature soared from pleasant twenties to something which must be a good deal higher than thirty. Stepping out of the van and into the heat felt like being punched in the stomach. It turned out, that we arrived in the middle of a scheduled power outage which would last until the evening. So, the fans in our primitive cabana did't work and it was very hot in there... Michael complained about a stomach ache and was waling a bit. Great start. We sat down in the bar where it was nice and breezy and got some drinks and snacks. The manager, Pea, a British Srilankan, recommended to give Michael an Ayuverdan tea (Sri Lankan medicine), which we did. Michael of course didn't like the tea and hardly drank any of it but felt better anyhow. (We figured he had been feeling bad because he had been motion sick from playing on the tablet in the van while we were travelling, pretty crazy driving, by the way).

After recovering from the trip, we went to the beach. The waves are incredible. Michael and Philip had a lot of fun playing around in them. The water is really warm - the warmest we have tried, I think. Warmer than what we tried in Okinawa. For us adults, it is a bit stressful because we have to watch that Michael doesn't get flushed away by the big waves (he is not very cautious and just laughs and jumps out in the water...). Philip lost his new diving goggles when being spun around in the water by a big wave.

Now, we have had our dinner. It turned out to be a buffet. After roasting the food on the fire, two giant red grilled fish and a lot of other stuff were served on a table and everybody got the food and ate at the same time. The food was excellent and it was really very cozy, with the ocean roaring in the background and everybody having their meal at the same time.