An 8am start again for the three of us, heading once again to the Agriculture Faculty of the University of Ruhuna, Mapalana as start point. Today we were joined by a young research assistant (Sange) as Mr Kumar Singhe was off, and in a bit of pain following stitches to the two fingers he cut yesterday trying to cut coconut pieces for us to taste. Professor Subasinghe was as jolly as ever, and we said goodbye to him as this was our last visit to his Department of Crop Science.
Our first visit was to a small single man premises producing coconut oil for local sale. 1.5 to 2 kg of locally sourced mature coconut produces about 1 litre of crude coconut oil. The process involves chopping the flesh into small 1cm² cubes and then drying them over the heat from a wood fuelled fire for some 45minutes, before passing them 4-5 x through an oil extractor. The smell of oil was wonderful, and the small amount I rubbed into my palm very soft – I can understand why it is used in the cosmetics industry.

Then on to Jayalak Fibre Mills, near Belliata. The owner and his wife were incredibly hospitable both answering all our questions and showing us their factory before inviting us into their house, where we showed each other pictures of our children. The factory buys husks locally and separates the fibre from the coconut peat, before processing the fibre into coir rope. This is then sold to a company in Galle that makes doormats. The factory employs 18 people from 14 local families, and the owner is very proud that he is contributing to an increased standard of living for these families. He has a desire to expand into coconut brush production but no land to set up the works. Any land he might acquire would be too rural in terms of labour supply, but more importantly reliable electricity supply to operate the machinery.

Having researched hard for 3 days we took a visit to a nearby Buddhist temple in the afternoon at Mulgirigala. We had the help of a vital local called Veejay (? spelling!) aged 61 who gave us a very good guide to the temple and introduction to Buddhist doctrine. The temple is set on 4 levels on a large rock dominating the landscape, and once at the top the views over the surrounding lush green countryside were incredible. Photographs and words will not do them justice. The exploration of the temple involved an ascent of some 300 or more steps, some of which can be best described as ladders! Of course what they say about mad dogs and Englishmen is true as we chose to make our ascent between 12.30 and 2pm!!

Mandice our driver managed to find us a local ‘chinese’ restaurant in Tangalle for a late luch. He had decided on a beach front hotel only to discover it, like two or three others, was closed for a local wedding.

Now sitting on the hotel balcony enjoying the offshore breeze. Another amazing day of sights, sounds and discoveries. I forgot to mention the macaques, lizard and rat snake that we saw!