We drew the little air-con bus for the trip from Dambulla to Anuradhapura after catching the local from Sigiriya to Dambulla. Bus rides, transit day, a long and very sweaty walk to the new guesthouse, the usual stuff. Anuradhapura is a part of the Cultural Triangle, the region in Sri Lanka's center that is home to most of the ancient ruins.
Dining ambience at our local hotel. Hotels are not hotels, remember?
Anuradhapura sits amidst ancient tanks, or reservoirs, and is home to some of the biggest dagobas (giant stupas) in this part of the world. Raised by successive kings of old, these religious cities were a battleground between the Ceylonese kings and their Southern Indian enemies. Conquest, re-conquest and rebuilding was the history here.
Following a good nights sleep in our plush new digs, we set out on Trusty Rusties to explore. The ruins are spread out across more than ten square kilometers and multiple sites, far to big to explore on foot. Despite a forecast of rain by noon we trusted to our luck, which has served us well so far. Perhaps being a grump about our late start and bad coffee doomed us. Yuppers, my fault.
Twisting through traffic and the maze of roads and lanes, we finally got to the first site. The locals have a "don't kill the foreigners" policy, which I heartily approve of. The sky was heavy, leaden clouds hanging low, and the air was almost liquid. It would be a sweaty day.
Ankor Wat this is not. With its wide lawns adorned with ruins and crumbling walls, this UNESCO site reminded me more of Sukhothai in Thailand. No getting your Indiana Jobes on here. More of a lawn party from ancient times. There are sites here dating back over 2500 years.
While the ruins were fun, after spending days exploring the Angkor complex, well, let's just say this was not my first rodeo. I have to admit to being a bit jaded when it comes to temples and ruins. To make things fun, I try to find the little details that are hiding, like the fat guardian guys.
It wasn't all about piles of stone. Riding a lonely road along a tank, we stopped for a good view of a mongoose scampering across the track. Just past that we scared a huge monitor lizard that was lurking on the edge of the road. Dark gray and black with yellow speckles, he was well over four feet long. We both got a nice look at it before he slid off the bank and into the brush below. I did not deign to follow.
It is a wet landscape here and was about to get wetter.
Verily the skies did open and we retreated to a little shack for lunch and shelter. Here is what it looked like:
Between the rains that would finally chase us from the field, we were lucky enough to witness a ceremony at one of the dagobas. A group of pilgrims and volunteers were decorating the circumference of the structure with a huge ribbon in the sacred Buddhist colors. Imagine a team of people threading a continuous 1.5 meter wide sash around a structure with a circumference of over 300 meters! It would look something like this:
In the video the team seems a bit short on sash length, but they did eventually get the two ends to join.
The rain increased until it was continuous. We visited the sacred Bodhi Tree under a steady rain. This Bodhi is the most sacred and oldest in Sri Lanka and is said to be from a cutting taken from the Buddha's Bodhi in India.
By late afternoon, sodden and tired, we pedaled through puddles and traffic. Safe on our treetop deck, we watched the squawking parrots roosting and the huge fruit bats waking up. Hunger bested us and we set out with under our bumbershoots for a well deserved dinner.
Best roti platter in Sri Lanka thus far.
As I write this the rain is still falling and the night symphony is in full swing, led by the joyous tree frogs. They dig this wet stuff. Tomorrow is a free day of exploring the modern town and hopefully brighter sky's.
From the rainy and noisy Sri Lankan night, Ciao for Now
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