Once upon a Time”

Arugam Bay is now changing very quickly.
Many are concerned. Will history be lost?
Here are our New Nostalgia Pages!
On Arugam.info as well as on Facebook
(“http://www.facebook.com/pages/Old-Arugam/112268483613?v=photos#/pages/Old-Arugam/112268483613“)
Please send your best shots taken BEFORE 2005 to:
ArugamFoto@gmail.com

anno 1953 Arugam Bay Circuit Bungalow

anno 1953 Arugam Bay Circuit Bungalow

anno 1953 at Arugambay

anno 1953 at Arugambay

7 Responses to “Old Arugam”


  1. 1 shana

    old is gold………. great.. i really love this pictures & all.dear arugam bay :) ,you have long way to go………….. good luck
    cheers
    chamila

  2. 2 anusar

    old vreey nice i love arugam bay pottuvil

  3. 3 mark scanlon

    has anyone ever driven to aragumbay from colombo in 4 1/2 hours?????
    that would be a scary ride!!!

  4. 4 Tom

    I’ve done it in 5hr. 35min. on a fast motorbike, at night.
    Not recommended – but I had to catch a flight.
    and surfed too long.

  5. 5 dilsiri

    my colleage curt did it in 5 and 1/2 hours. in a jeep. you know, now that the roads are being done it would be much easier.

  6. 6 Angela Turner

    Mark,
    I am sure if you put a V-8 or two in one of those red buses and ran it on empty you could come close to 41/2 hours. My memories of those red beasts are of teeth clenched, horizontal hairdo and fingernails dug into the shoulders of the person sitting in the seat in front of me.

  7. 7 Lance

    In 1983, I did it in 48 hours via train to Batticaloa, survived election fights over night, bussed down to Pottuvil and another bus to the Bay, with a Wave Ski.
    The war and curfews over the next 4 months. Finally on the way back to Columbo, a lot of what I witnessed on the way in, had been destroyed.
    There were major developments within A’bay during that time, transforming it very quickly from a fishing village to a holiday town.
    ‘Surfed morning and late arvo every day – about 5 hours a day. As the season was turning off into September, surfwise, one afternoon a slight storm sent 8 footers around the Point for a couple of hours. The boardies couldn’t handle the cross-rip and wind on the face for too long, so I was left to goat-boat it all by myself with about x400 Euro Touros spectating.(15 minutes of glory).
    I had got to know a lot of the locals very well during that time and was shocked with the disaster. Photos coming out showed recognisable landmarks destroyed and old friends lost.

    A word of warning: Please take care not to get the sandfly bites (the locals call them cocoanut flies) and cover any lesions and keep them dry – there is a Malaria-like infection caused by the sandflies, called Leishmaniasis. Very nasty get it treated and get out of there and then get treated at home again.

    A lot happened during that 4 months – a lifetime of memories.

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