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Cutting factory in Ratnapura unusual for its superb worker conditions. It also does excellent work. |
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Each lapidarist station fashions a different part of the gemstone. |
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Typical Sri Lankan tropical jungle approaching Ratnapura. |
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A rubber tree plantation near Ratnapura. One of Sri Lanka's other cash crops. |
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Tea pickers at work in one of the numerous Ceylon Tea plantations. |
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Rubber trees above and Ceylon Tea below; both cash crops growing on same land. |
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Local woman doing her laundry in river |
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JB with Iqbal on right and our constant companion on left. Notice tiny white dot to the left of companion: it is the woman doing her laundry in the picture to the left. |
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Buddhist temple on the road from Ratnapura to Beruwella. Buddhism is the dominant creed of the largest ethnic group, the Sinhalese, and is followed by 70% of the population. |
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Another Buddhist temple on same road. Sri Lanka's art, literature and architecture is to a large extent a product of its Buddhist basis. |
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JB preparing to buy in a Muslim gem buying house in Beruwella. Here the sellers handed in packets of gems through a window. The gem dealers of Sri Lanka are primarily Muslims. Muslims and Christians make up about 7.5% each of the population. The Tamils are approximately 15% of the population. |
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JB with our local gem dealer hosts in Beruwella, friends of Iqbal, my host in Ratnapura. |
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Gem sellers waiting to hand in gem parcels. |
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Sunset near Hikkaduwa, a coastal town on Sri Lanka's south west shore. |
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The drive down the coast to Galle runs along the southwest coast and affords view after view of the Indian Ocean |
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View from the old Galle fort. The port of Galle is Sri Lanka's fourth largest town, with 80,000 people is 115 km south of Colombo. |
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Local Sri Lankans enjoying a swim off the old fort walls. Before the breakwaters of Colombo were completed in the late 19th century, Galle was the major port and still handles shipping today. |
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JB and John L. at the Galle fort with lighthouse in the background. Historians believe Galle may be the Tarshish of Biblical times--where King Solomon obtained gems, spices and peacocks. |
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A stilt fisherman near Ahangama on the southern coast |
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When the tide is running right the stilt fisherman man their stilts which are coveted locations handed down from father to son. |
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A mining monkey. |
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