Crumbling ruins in the middle of the jungle, a nerve wracking hike to a sky high palace, monkeys monitors, and more monkeys and an alarming elephant safari (for the elephants and us). Gorgeous Sri Lanka not the easiest place to travel but the steamy humidity, tongue singeing curries and few uninvited toads in the bathroom and a couple of latched leeches were worth enduring, to experience this true jewel of a country. This is part one 🙂
“The Fab Four” aka us and lovely Irene and Tony embarked on this trip for just under a month in Sri Lanka (can you tell those boys are bros… yes real bros) We all had spent two weeks together prior, basking on the beaches of Thailand. Life sure is hard. A 3 hour flight from Bangkok found us in Colombo. We arrived after midnight, Irene (smart girl) had arranged a service to pick us up – great to see our names on a placard as we exited the airport – stress free – just how we like it. We got to our hotel in Negombo after a 30 minute drive and literally fell in to bed at 1ish. Jude and his wife our lovely family hosts prepared a delicious traditional breakfast, egg hoppers potato curry and fruit. Fish market after? said our host – sure why not
මීගමුව Negombo, crazy, frantic, horns honking, four lane highways (but only two really). ආයුඛෝවන් (āyubūvan), “may you live long”, accompanied by a small bow and the hands clasped together is used for greetings and partings. Bit obesssed by the script sooo beautiful ලස්සණ. There are 2 official languages Singhalese and Tamil is the other. Buddhist, Muslim, Catholic and Hindu all live happily together each making space for the other -Temples, Mosques and Churches pepper the landscape. Nice lesson of tolerance for the rest of us.
The Negombo fish market is pretty well known, a noisy place selling all manner of fish and everything in between. Even a poor old bull shark proudly being displayed by the captain. A large quantity of fish are dried on coconut mats and turned after 2 days – lots of flies but we were assured the salting and drying destroys any dangerous bacteria.
From our guest house we arranged for a driver to take us up to the North Central Province for six days. It seemed a great option he would take us to the places we wanted to visit and secure some decent accommodation on the way. It worked well Nelson was a super star and we really enjoyed his company, safe driving, and dry sense of humour. Hopefully he enjoyed being with us as much – hehe we like to think so.
Gilliam our lovely guide took us out for the evening to this the first Buddhist temple in Sri Lanka.The temple was built in (307 BC to 267 BC) who ruled in the ancient capital of Anuradhapurna. But the super amazing part for us was the stargate. Yes ….
hidden among the trees quite a hike from the royal ponds, cut into a rock face, is a crazy carving which is locally known as “Bawa Chakraya” or the “Sakwala Chakraya” The Stargate. This circular petroglyph is 6 feet in diameter with strange symbols and has attracted historians and archaeologists and believers of extraterrestrials. Ohhhh we love a good mystery. What is it? who carved it? why ?when? how? – oh for a time machine – or maybe this is one !!
Habarana known for its vast jungle. None else as far as the eye could see. Hurulu Forest Reserve was designated in January 1977. It is an important habitat for the Sri Lankan elephant. And this is who we had come to see lovely gentle ellies! An open jeep took us into the reserve. Nelson came too and sat up front with the safari driver. We were separated by a glassless window, and sat in the back of the open jeep to view the wild life. The scenery was breathtaking flashes of iridescent blue and green – glimpses of bright birds in the grasses and trees. Massive colourful butterflies and indignant peacocks glaring at us from the side of the “road”. But alas… no elephants. We searched for over an hour and saw nothing not even another jeep or person just endless green stretching for miles.
Finally up front Irene spotted a calf elephant just a baby. Sure enough mum was close behind. We stopped wow amazing. After a few minutes mum started to flap her ears and sway her trunk from side to side – now I’m no David Attenborough, but even I knew she was getting fed up, the hubbys also said we should go but our driver didn’t. Suddenly 2 jeeps came from nowhere, now mama was getting really mad. She threw up her trunk and bellowed and charged the jeep behind us, hitting it several time with her head. Her bellow alerted a bull, and he came charging out of the forest towards the passenger side of our jeep where Nelson was sitting. Our safari driver revved his engine. Chaos ensued as Nelson in panic attempted to squeeze himself through the small window separating him and us. At the same time Irene made a beeline for the said window and tried to go to the front – OMG talk about crazy – finally our driver hit the gas and off we sped. being screamed at by the other jeeps for blocking the trail. – Hmmmm our outfit not very professional.
After the excitement of yesterdays excursion and brush with death (ok I like to be dramatic but just ask the others, before you condem my exaggerations !!!). We decided to have a genteel day and visit the ancient city of Polonnaruwa පොළොන්නරුව (sorry can’t help it LOVE this script) which is the second most ancient city of Sri Lanka’s Kingdoms. Polonnaruwa was first declared the capital city by King Vijayabahu l, who defeated Chola invaders in 1070. We had heard that this was truly a spectacle, so were ready early to try and avoid the crowds. We needn’t have worried though tourists so few and far between – shoulder season we were told- or maybe the rather hot political situation that errupted just as we arrived. We feel safe here though. We wandered the enormous site completely alone in some corners. Stunning.
The Moonstone at the base of the steps- we saw these all over the site beautifully carved used to clean your feet before entering the temple. known in Sinhalese as sandakada pahana. The carvings of the semi circular stone slab were the same in every sandakada pahana. A half lotus was carved in the centre, which was enclosed by several concentric bands. The first band from the half lotus is decorated with a procession of swans, followed by a band with an intricate foliage design known as liyavel. The third band has carvings of four animals; elephants, lions, horses, and bulls. These four animals follow each other in a procession symbolizing the four stages in life: growth, energy, power and forbearance. The fourth and outermost band contains a carving of flames, usually interpreted as representing a fire altar.
Polonnaruwa Atadageya was the temple, which used to house the sacred Tooth relic of Load Buddha in Polonnaruwa kingdom time. The tooth relic is super important to sri Lankan history – Who ever has the tooth was king so some very fine temples were built to house it. This being one of 3 in polonnaruwa. Now the tooth is in Kandy. Shine up that puppy folks we’re off there tomorrow.
The Gal Vihara ගල් විහාරය, is a rock temple. It was created in the 12th century. The central feature of the temple is four statues of the Buddha, which have been carved into the face one piece of granite. There is a large seated figure, another smaller seated figure inside an artificial cavern, a standing figure and a reclining figure. These are considered to be some of the best examples of ancient Sinhalese sculpting and carving arts. Gorgeous and boy it rained as we got here
Our disappointing guide slunk off after pocketing our cash. We missed Gilliam. Nelson was upset because he felt we hadn’t been shown a big chunk of the site so he took off his driver hat and put on his tour guide one – oh Nelson you showed us the best bit ! Complete alone (well apart from lots of monkeys a monitor lizard and a desperately small kitten which broke my heart)
I thought it was just me that had spent a restless night anxious about the following days sky high climb up Sigiriya Rock. At breakfast Irene admitted she too was a wee bit SCARED of the 200 meters or 660 ft climb “It’s walking down.” she said. “It’s walking up” I said. The boys just ate nonchalantly does anything worry them? We also learnt that morning there are bees which have swarmed people on the way up. You have to be quiet in certain areas – Lord its gonna be a great day. Are you coming up with us Nelson? – No, really… oh why?
We were in the queue at 8.30 ready to climb Sri Lanka’s most famous site. It was built by King Kasyapa (477 – 495 CE) for his new capital. He built his palace on the top of this rock and decorated its sides with colourful frescoes (which we weren’t allowed to take photos of). On a small plateau about halfway up the side of this rock he built a gateway in the form of an enormous lion. The name of this place is derived from this structure —Sīhāgiri, the Lion Rock. The capital and the royal palace was abandoned after the king’s death. It was used as a Buddhist monastery until the 14th century.
The lion paws once there was a head to go with them but it sadly has long since gone. This next section was the scariest I didn’t take photos too focussed on one foot after the other. Such narrow steps bolted into the rock. Yayy we did it beautiful views rewarded us at the top.
This is our hotel with Sigiriya rock in the distance and the critters this is liz she hung out here a lot. Very much in the jungle. poor Irene and Tony had to share their bathroom with toads, one of which jumped in the loo- Don’t ask what happened to it !! and the beware elephant sign at the end of our lane. Which we saw actually hanging out on the side of the road. We’ve seen enough ellies thanks xx
