Of People and Places

Half way through the safari on Madu river in Balapitiya, Sri Lanka, we had sudden rains which made the boatmen abandon the original plan of visiting the islets and the mangroves. It rained quite heavily and disappointed, we went to the Galle fort for sightseeing and hoped that the weather would be fine in the afternoon to try again. Galle is a beautiful city, but more on that later. All things seem to be for the best. We got to enjoy boating in the Madu river both in the rains, where the water looked lovely and in the late afternoon, where all the leaves looked fresh and reinvigorated from the morning rains and it wasn't as sunny or sweltering. This is a little watercolor sketch I made. We had just visited an island where the locals spoke about growing Cinnamon and when we made our way out of the marshland, one of the boats ahead of us, it made such a charming picture, with most of the horizon covered with foliage from the mangroves. It was like we were in a tunnel ...

On the road to Thirthahalli from Shimoga, the beautiful Tunga river meanders along, its green water rippling gently in the stillness. We stop a little way further from the Sakkarebayalu elephant camp to get a closer look at the trees that float in the calm waters.   On the other side are dark woods that tower over us – true children of the rainforests around Agumbe. There is a  path among these woods I want to explore, but we are short of time. It is dusk and all colors are merging into shades of violet, umber and grey.   There is a little light reflected in the small clearing at the end of the path and the dense trees that surround it make it look like a halo. And from this clearing comes a man in a bicycle. It is a charming picture and one I hope to be able to put down on paper some day. The tangle of roots from the swamp makes for interesting shapes. There is one that looks like it is raising its arms to the sky.   They may look spooky in the night. A...