BOOSSA
information kindly supplied by Wendy Winter

Boossa is a small seaside village 100 miles from Colombo. It is situated between the tourist resort of Hikkaduwa and the old Portuguese/Dutch town of Galle. The Koggala airfield near Galle was used during World War II as an Air Force base and is now a civilian airport. There is not much jungle around Boossa and I wondered if he was in fact sent to Sigiriya (see below), the old Sinhalese fortress on a high rock in the middle of the real jungle. You may have seen photos of the frescos of topless "devis" or goddesses. It is really ancient. The story goes that a king of Ceylon had 2 sons. He was reputed to have a great treasure. His heir wanted it and asked his father to show it to him. The king took him to the great tank (reservoir) he had built and ran the water through his fingers. The drops glistened like diamonds in the sun. He said that was all the treasure he had. The son was enraged and walled his father up alive then fled to the jungle to escape his brother’s anger and built the fortress.