H & S hit the cultural triangle

We've just returned from 10 days wandering Sri Lanka's Cultural Triangle - not just seeing the 'must sees' of Sri Lanka but learning loads about the island's history, eating lots of lovely rice and curry and generally having a good time.

First stop was Anuradhapura - ancient capital of the island
The site was enormous and included ruins of royal palaces and the numerous monastries that were built by the different kings ruling there. The monastries were BIG - usually about 5,000 monks and the buildings and statues were big too... Some of the stuppas are the biggest in the world! Millions of bricks used, enormous troughs (i.e. 18m) for the food given to the monks... everything was big!
We rented bikes to cover the site - hot work but worth it!
This is Sylv in front of one of the 3 biggest Stupas in the city
This was another of the three stupas, the only one still 'active' and very busy, as we visited the night before the big Jasmine festival which would cover the whole walkway with flowers. There were pilgrims everywhere, preparing to sleep outside the temple and stands of food and loads of other things (clay pots, cushions, food etc) too, which made it all feel like a fair.

Lamps at the Maha Bhodi shrine - the Bo tree arrived from India and is a cutting of the one under which the Buddha sat as he attained enlightenment - lots of people, prayers, donation calling (a bit like bingo calling but letting everyone know who's given what..)

Next day we took the bus and swapped the saddle for hundreds of steps to see Mihintale, a temple on a rock and ruins of caves and other temples around, and site of Ashoka's son coming to teach the kings about Buddhism, leading to lots of conversions.. He taught from the top of the rock on the right - windy and rather hairy place for a lecture!



From Anuradhapura we went to Polonnaruwa, the next ancient capital of Sri Lanka and rented the room prepared for the three bears' visit... ha ha!

Polonnaruwa was much more 'concentrated' than A'pura and the sites have been excavated to a further extend giving a better idea of what the capital would have looked like when it was full of people. There was even a long shoppping arcade outside the gates.

Here are some pics to give you an idea of the site, temples, moonstones, lotus pond/ jacuzzi, image houses...

The Gal Viara is the famous collection of three enormous statues:
The dying Buddha and his disciple, Ananda
The Buddha meditating - these statues were absolutely stunning and this one seemed to be breathing...

The monastry ruins all over Sri Lanka were dotted with ancient loos, part of the amazing water management and irrigation systems built here by successive kings and creating enormous artificial lakes across the country. Here's Sylv demonstrating a Polonnaruwa loo....


And a view of the lake at sunset.....


From Polonnaruwa we made it to Sigiriya - a crazy palace on a 200m high rock, an ancient disney land built over meditation caves... and a good test of our head for hights and our strength to see if we were really over the Dengue - it was a long climb up!


On the way up, the king had covered a whole side of the rock with paintings of beautiful women.. then added a wall on the other side of the path up to reflect them and surround those walking up - it took your mind of the climb for a while!


Views from the top were stunning and it was amazing to think of how they built the palace, laid out the gardens, got water up there and fed everyone!


We took a little trip to Dambulla and visited the cave temples there... up some more steps!
We crossed a weding party coming down - dressed in the traditional Kandyan outfits - big shoulder pads and tums for the men, frilly saris for the women!

The colours, paintings and statues in the caves were amazing and well worth the climb!


At the bottom, there was what Mali calls a 'Coca-Cola' buddha at the Golden Temple attended by life-size plastic monks - a contrast in styles indeed!


Now we're off doing some 'work' for a change visiting the Home and school supported through Lankangels and accompanying a group of the Colombo women's intelligentsia across the country on their first trip to the East Coast after 30 years of war which made this bit of land inaccessible.

We've got egg sandwiches, fruit cake and a map, so we should be fine!