June 6,

I awoke feeling good, but the sky was very overcast. We had breakfast of cereal & yogurts. Outside was still cloudy. HUMPH! So we decided to still go out, but the scooter rental did not have any scooters available. This ended up being okay, because as we were waiting for the bus, it did start spitting. When we boarded the bus, it began raining – enough that we would have been soaked on a scooter! Sometimes things workout for the best, Amen? Anyway, we are on the bus to Matara. It cost us 244 Rupees (81 cents). The bus was not too crowded for whatever reason. I did not watch out the front, though I could see – it is just too stressful.

We arrived in Matara and went to a Buddhist temple, on a little island off shore right next to the bus station. This temple is not much to look at inside and is having a lot of construction, but it has a killer location!!  We crossed the cement pedestrian bridge to get there. The old metal walking bridge has, well, seen better days. Anyway, we gave a donation and went into the temple to get to the view of the Indian Ocean. The temple does have a little water moat (more a water trough) around it with good sized koi-like fish swimming in it. But the attraction is the view out. Waves are crashing here big time! We can see the lighthouse and the southernmost point of Sri Lanka – just to the east of us. Beyond the horizon, to the south is just water… lots and lots of water until you reach Antarctica (5,000 miles)! 

We left and were going to Matara's fortification walls. There's also a cricket pitch just in front of the walls. We stopped briefly and watched a bit of a  game. It was young boys/men, but they were in their white uniforms. I do not know much about the game of cricket. We did hear a couple of days ago, at Rosie's party, that the USA cricket team beat Canada's team… I did not know we had a USA cricket team!!😂 Anyway, the first fortifications were built by Portuguese here in 1595. Then the Dutch captured Matara from the Portuguese and in 1645 reconstructed the walls and built the star fort, as I recall. The Dutch were protecting their 'East India Trading Company.'  We walked a bit on the walls then inside the fort. The oldest building inside is a Dutch Reformatory Church, built in 1706. We went inside this church, but it is not being kept up and no photos were allowed inside. The “fort town” was many old dilapidated buildings – the ones being kept up governmental buildings – so not much of a fort feeling. We went back out into the main city.

Here we crossed a bridge over a river to get to the Star Fort. It is actually quite small. There is a more traditional moat around the fort, following the star pattern. We saw many fish and turtles in that moat! There is even a drawbridge, that is still being used as the entrance into the fort! At the entrance, there is not a fee, but donations were accepted. There were two galleries we were taken through. The guy behind the desk became our self-appointed guide (of sorts) as we went through the two rooms. Again no photos were allowed.

The first room was of the history of the fort itself, with models and was all about the Portuguese, Dutch, and then English colonization of Matara. The back wall of this gallery was about a prehistoric body found, from 4,000 B.C. That was interesting. The second room was more of art works found in Matara, labeled 'minor' art works. It included some pottery, jewelry, coins, etc..  We left here and went up on the ramparts of the Star Fort. It was hard to get pictures due to the closeness of the whole small structure of the fort. Little Island, little fort, I don't know, but it would have been interesting to have a drone flying over to take it all in.

Next, we went for lunch. Matara is a bigger town, and we saw a KFC advertised. Well, that sounded very good, so we had spicy fried chicken. This was more like Popeye's chicken back home, which we loved!! The twist for us was it came with rice pilaf; onion sambal – red onion, chillies, and tomatoes; and a zingy sauce. We each had a 7up (since they have Pepsi products at KFC).  All in all it hit our spot!  Also it was AC inside!! 

Now, we took a bus in proximity to the southernmost point of Sri Lanka and to the Lighthouse of Matara. We then walked some seeing and hearing many critters – lizards and peafowl – on the way. Also we saw trees trimmed along the power lines and poles – wonder if their power was shut off? Just saying…  Then we arrived – well, we actually could not physically walk out on the place that is the southernmost point! It was Private property! How disappointing, we got close and took pictures of the little beach/rocky outcropping. Well, that felt like a failure, so we went on the lighthouse. When we arrived here, there was a sign for “Dondra Head – Southern Point of Sri Lanka.”  Wow! – well, that made us feel… some better. We did our photo op. The lighthouse is not open to public. . so all info we found was online – has been computerized, is 161 feet tall, and was built in 1890. It is the tallest in Sri Lanka and supposedly one of the tallest in S.E. Asia. Anyway, it is a big white beacon with lots of palm trees around it!

From here we stopped only to get drinks – water and a coke. We decided to stride back to the bus terminal. It was really overcast. We caught a bus and went back to Dikwella. The bus was way more occupied and we couldn't sit together, but at least we were sitting!

Back at Dikwella, we quickly went to the store, and then back to our place. Good thing we went straight back, it started raining off and on. After we cooled off, I started blogging and Jeff laid down – he had awoken early again this morning, 05ish. It kept light raining off and on. Then monkeys visited the neighbors' and our roofs. We heard the local bread tuk-tuk. I have not mentioned this. There is a tuk-tuk with a speaker playing the music of “It's a small world after all…” that comes by a few times everyday. Rosie told us, “That one sells bread,” – when I heard it one day while we were at her place, and asked her. It reminds me of an Ice Cream Truck. But there are two other loud speaker vehicles that drive by, not daily though – one is the trash truck; the other, well, I don't know it's genre. They all have there own tune. Anyway, it is a day in the life of Sri Lankan living.

Our power went out about suppertime. We had a Greek salad and 'Cheesebits' crackers. We were eating and the power came back on during that time, so not out to long. Our host also came around this time to collect some mail. Then we ate the last of our fruit and nuts ice cream. Wow, then it really rained hard for quite some time as I finished this blog. It was a good day. Glad we got out when we did!!