Bicycling in Sri Lanka

Dear Navako,

Thanks for the comments.
I was out for a couple of days so could not reply earlier.
No personal insult was intended, only an observation that things tend to
be much easier when one is young without realising it and sometimes
being proud of it.
Regarding learning scripts: I don't have low expectations of Western
scholars, but more about myself. The people I know generally don't find
Sinhala script easy. I think that the remark by Rett in his message of
the 16th is very appropriate (``Two weeks sounds about right, putting in
a concentrated hour or two a day. But another reading skill you haven't
mentioned is developing 'instant recognition' of words in the new script
(as opposed to spelling your way through words). This requires extensive
reading to develop. This skill is vital for being able to skim quickly
through texts looking for certain words or grammatical forms, or for
quickly taking in a table of contents.'')
I wonder if I will ever be able to get this instant recognition for
Sinhala as, like Rett writes it is much easier to develop as a child. I
usually have to read every letter of a word and then often look at it
again as a whole word. With manuscripts this becomes even more difficult
as the words are linked. This slows down reading to an inconvenient
pace. For some Pali texts that I know by heart such as the Patimokkha
this problem is not so big as I know what word to expect. I might be
incorrect, but it seems to me that when I read English it seems that I
don't read all the letters in a word, rather there often seems to be an
instant recognition of the whole word.

Dr Jacqueline Filliozat is willing to provide her EFEO materials for a
manuscript super catalogue. She might also be willing to provide her
editions of texts like the Pathamasambodhi for a new digital Tipititaka.

Although Sri Lanka is a beautiful country, the way the Sinhalese drive
on the narrow roads (which have hardly changed since the British left
here) is very reckless and there are many traffic accidents. I would not
recommend to go bicycling here unless you intend to return to Canada in
a coffin. In any case you would need a mountain bike if you want to go
into the hill country. If you like I can send you a digital copy of Ven.
S. Dhammika's forthcoming book called ``Sacred Island'' which gives a
lot of useful info about the sacred places, etc. I am living in Kandy
and you are welcome to drop in.

Yours,
            Bh. Nyanatusita