After Monaragala, I hopped a bus to the lovely small town of Ampara (which is pronounced something like "Umpire"). There isn't that much there to see, and people looked at me weird when I said I was going to Ampara instead of Arugum Bay. But, I'm not much of a swimmer or surfer, which is primarily the reason tourists visit the coast. So, I went to Ampara.
Why Ampara? There's only one reason to go there--the town has a lovely Japanese Peace Pagoda near which elephants sometimes pass in the evening.
 |
The Peace Pagoda
|
 |
| When the Japanese try to paint Sri Lankans, this is the result. |
 |
| There's a lake nearby, too. |
 |
| The temple itself. |
 |
| Inside the temple |
To make a long story short, the elephants never showed up, unsurprisingly enough.
What did happen was that a wedding party arrived and started posing for photos. A couple members of the procession walked up to me and asked if I was
a) Korean, and
b) a boy
They then proceeded to mock me roundly (in Singhala) for over 5 minutes (lol, I'm not exaggerating or being paranoid here; they were really rude to me, for no apparent reason). I walked in the other direction, and a good many of the wedding party members proceeded to follow me, just staring. They chased me around the grounds for awhile till I hid in some bushes, still waiting for the elephants to show up (which they never did).
At least I got to watch the sun set.
.JPG)