Halloween is pretty much ignored in the UAE. Makes sense. Only about 1-2 percent of the 8 million people here are Westerners. Emiratis, Indians, Pakistanis. Bangladeshis, Indonesians … October 31 is a non-event. I, however, was caught up in the spirit of the “Hallowed Eve” … so I spent the whole day wearing the same […]

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Do you ever dream of disappearing? One day you’re there, and lots and lots of people could find you, if they wanted … and the next day no one knows where on earth you might be? I thought about that while in Sri Lanka. Going “off the grid” … I’ve given this some semi-serious consideration, […]

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OK, the downside to a vacation in the south of Sri Lanka: The trip out.

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Maybe I just haven’t visited the correct countries. But I have never been anywhere, outside eastern Europe, where the assumption is so overwhelming that any Western tourist must be a German.

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The South Beach Resort is a tiny hotel. It claims 10 rooms. And given the number of staff we saw, upon arrival, and the realization that we were the only guests in the hotel, we wondered how the economics of it worked. We have figured it out, in the seven days since. Meetings, reunions, and […]

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Abu Dhabi us one of the driest places on Earth. The southwest coast of Sri Lanka isn’t one of the wettest, but for anyone who has been living in the UAE for the past two years … it seems like it. In the near week we have been here, it has rained every day. Sometimes […]

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The whole western coast of Sri Lanka, south of Colombo, certainly, is like one giant resort. It presents nearly one uniform stretch of fabulous, west-facing beach with glorious sunsets coming up at dusk, daily. However, where we happen to be staying, Koggala, is not quite a city. More like a hamlet, with a handful of […]

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  We were sitting on the balcony of our room, reading, not doing much, which pretty much is the point of being here … when Leah spotted several figures swimming in the Indian Ocean, about the same distance from shore she had been the day before. These swimmers, however, were local guys, teens, by the […]

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Awful events often seem to rise from the mundane. Bad assumptions, a lack of information, a series of unforeseen outcomes. Some cable TV stations have lots of programming like that, the wing nut that fails and leads to disaster. In this case it was personal and not theoretical, and it was happening in front of […]

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Mostly an overcast, cloudy day. Known to happen this time of year, on the former Ceylon. The rainy season is usually over by now, but not always, clearly. In the afternoon, when the drizzle let up, we decided to go for a walk in the neighborhood. Just up the street, looking for a grocery to […]

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