We hopped on the slow train from Nuwara Eliya and headed on to Kandy to begin the cultural/ historical segment of our trip, the last part of our time in Sri Lanka. One of the highlights of the ride was hanging out the doors for most of it, something we could never do in Europe or the States. Emmett and a Sri Lankan boy sat in the open doorway, watching the country go by at about 30 KPH (19 MPH).
I spent a couple of hours doing the same thing on the other side of the car.
We passed through more beautiful hills and tea plantations as we made our way down from the cooler, higher altitude region of Sri Lanka.
Our train trip from Nuwara Eliya to Kandy was likely the last train ride of our entire trip.....which was hard to believe since we've traveled roughly 10,000 kilometers/6200 miles by train to date! We took a few pictures to commemorate this milestone.
Sri Lanka has beautiful wooden timetable signs in the stations--like something out of an old movie since they're analog and changed by hand.
Kandy is the second largest city in Sri Lanka (after Colombo) and is centered around a beautiful, man-made lake.
The city is particularly famous for Sri Dalada Maligawa, the Temple of the Sacred Tooth Relic. A tooth of the Buddha is said to be housed inside (though some people believe it's not actually there but somewhere else for safekeeping.
The temple is surrounded by a moat which was used for protection in ancient times.
Every year, Kandy hosts a massive festival called Esala Perahera, during which the tooth relic is processed around town with hundreds of costumed elephants and thousands of dancing participants. While we weren't in town at the right time of year to see this, we did see where the elephants are brought in order to be blessed and where one especially important elephant is outfitted with the elaborate tooth casket.
The walls and ceilings were elaborately decorated with beautiful paintings and carvings.
This animal has the nose of an elephant, the eyes of an eagle, the ears of a pig, the head of a crocodile, the scales of a fish, the legs of a lion, and the feathers of a peacock. It guarded the entrance to one of the temple chambers.
The different chambers of the temple were very elaborately decorated.
This is where people bring offerings of food, which are later put outside to feed the poor and hungry of the city.
There was an entire miniature museum dedicated to this elephant, Raja, who participated in the Esala Perahera for about 50 years (and carried the tooth relic for 37 of those). He was declared a national treasure of Sri Lanka and was one of the most celebrated elephants in Asia during his lifetime.
After a couple of hours wandering around the temple, we happened upon a small British cemetery located behind the temple complex. We were wandering around when the caretaker came over and started telling us all about some of the different people buried in the cemetery and a lot of interesting history from the British colonial time (1815-1948).
This grave was of 2 children who both died from cholera in a span of 3 days.
This gentleman was killed in the countryside by an elephant.
We went into the caretaker's house, where they had meticulous records of everyone buried in the cemetery and photos showing how much painstaking work had been put into reclaiming the cemetery after it was neglected and overgrown. We really enjoyed this unexpected stop and the interesting conversation with the caretaker, who had been working there over 30 years and was so dedicated to the cemetery.
In Kandy we were woken up each morning by the band at the nearby girls' school....they were loud and proud by 7 AM each morning. Nobody in town gets to sleep in when school is in session.
We stopped in at Helga's Folly, an eccentric hotel that we'd read about in our guide book.
It was quite a unique place, to say the least. It's owned and designed by a woman who grow up amongst 1950s Hollywood celebrities, and our guide book described it as "Gaudi meets Dali". It mainly looked kind of dumpy and very cluttered to us.....we had a drink so we could wander around the bizarre rooms.
To complete the eccentric atmosphere, there were crazy monkeys play-fighting outside and making all kinds of commotion. They were making us a bit nervous to go outside....but we didn't really want to stay inside, either.
A highlight of Kandy for the boys was their unexpected chance to drive a tuk-tuk.....at night and on a windy, unlit, narrow, Sri Lankan road, nonetheless. This tuk-tuk driver was so thrilled to have the boys drive that Bob and I just held on in back and prayed that we wouldn't run into an oncoming bus with our 7 or 10 year old at the wheel. It was a bit hairy, but the boys are still talking about how awesome it was.
Another highlight for us all was this hole in the wall ice cream shop, which Bob had read about online and we trekked across town to find. The owner makes the ice cream entirely from scratch with every order. He "fries" it in a pan that's extremely cold (it's not actually fried; the cold metal turns the liquid into a solid as he scrapes it back and forth). It was fun to watch and he was a very friendly and hard-working guy---and his product is absolutely delicious.
One evening we went to a cultural performance highlighting different traditional dances in Sri Lanka. It also included fire breathing and walking on coals, which the boys thought was really cool.
We left Kandy to head to Anuradhapura, taking our time to stop at a couple of interesting places. First, we visited the Royal Rock Temple outside Dambulla. This picture is actually of a museum; the temple is carved into caves behind this area.
After a long climb up a lot of stairs, we reached the temple complex.
There were statues of all sizes, including this large reclining Buddha.
The golden dagoba in front was shining in the sun.
The view from the cave temples was quite beautiful, as well.
From Dambulla we moved on to Sigiriya, an ancient rock fortress. It towers over the surrounding landscape and is as impressive from far away as it is up close.
To get to the top is quite a trek, but it was definitely worth the effort. We arrived at Sigiriya at pretty much the hottest part of the day, but some cloud cover made the heat a bit more tolerable during our walk up.
We passed rock walls with ancient graffiti written in beautiful Sinhala script.
We didn't stay too long in this area--yikes!
Climbing, climbing, climbing.....
Good thing we didn't have to take the old stairs, though...
The view from the top was spectacular.
At the top, there were some other tourists taking "jumping" photos, which the boys thought were really fun. So we took a family jumping photo, too.
The boys wanted to make it look like they were jumping off the edge (this ledge was actually only about 2 feet above a smaller space....)
We walked around the ruins at the top of the rock for a bit.
Just before we were ready to head back, a long snake came out of nowhere and slithered directly in front of us. As we all jumped out of the way, I exclaimed (in a not-so-great behavior modeling moment), "That's a long ass snake!"
After the commotion died down, Colin asked curiously, "Mom, what type of snake is an 'ass snake'?" Oops. :)
Eventually we headed back down, which was a lot easier and quicker than the trek up.
Back at ground level, we walked through the museum and also came upon this scene.....we saw one monitor lizard and got closer to take a picture.....and then realized there were actually two. The boys then launched into a loud recount of how many different types of animals we've seen mating.....the list is surprisingly long.
From Sigiriya we went on to Anuradhapura, which would be our base for the final days of our trip. Anuradhapura is one of the ancient capitals of Sri Lanka and has very well-preserved ruins. It is also one of the oldest continuously inhabited cities in the world, and it was fascinating to see such ancient history intertwined in the daily lives and rituals of the locals.
This painting depicts the creation of the dagoba, using elephants to help raise the stones up to the top.
The flowers left as offerings were so fragrant and beautiful.
It was really hot and sunny and, at one point, a friendly military guard motioned to the boys to come sit in the shade with him. He motioned for us to continue on, so we walked around the dagoba while the boys hung out with him. He didn't speak much English but was happy to take this photo before we left.
Our friendly tuk-tuk driver/guide drove us all over Anurdhapura over 1 1/2 days.
This was an ancient hospital for monks, including a stone bath in which a monk would submerge himself in oil for healing treatments.
We saw beautiful, well-preserved guard stones and moonstones that adorned the entrances of buildings.
We saw more beautiful dagobas and learned that their unique shape reflects the shape of a Bodhi tree leaf--the Bodhi tree is sacred in Buddhism since Buddha is said to have become enlightened under a Bodhi tree in India.
As we tuk-tuked our way through Anurdhapura, we could hear the chanting of monks being played over loudspeakers. It was the perfect soundtrack for exploring such a sacred and ancient area.
We visited an ancient refectory, where thousands of monks simultaneously ate their meals. This long stone trough was where their alms bowls were put to be filled with rice (a separate, slightly smaller trough for curry was behind us).
This is where the monks would swim before eating, to bathe and cool themselves off.
And more dagobas, some with very basic stairs!
Anurdhapura is also known for having the oldest documented tree in the world--a tree which I was unexpectedly super-excited to see and be near. Something about this tree was fascinating (even though later we were told that the oldest part is actually only a tiny bit of what you see below). The tree has caretakers and written records of its care since 245 BC, when it began as a sprig from the original Bodhi tree that's in India (where Buddha achieved enlightenment).
The gates to the temple at the tree were very pretty, with elephants bowing down in respect.
There was an offering processional approaching, so we watched for a bit. Everywhere we went in Anuradhapura there were throngs of people bringing offerings to dagobas, but this was the largest procession by far, with drummers and flag bearers and a uniformed official leading the way underneath a canopy.
Towards the end of our visit in Anuradhapura, the boys each got one more tuk-tuk driving session in....this time during the day and on straighter, flatter roads, thankfully.
I finally remembered to get a picture of something very Sri-Lankan: the tuk-tuk bread truck! These little trucks go around playing the same song that is used by ice cream trucks in the United States. We heard them every day we were in Sri Lanka, but I didn't get a picture until the end of our trip. This is a very fitting last picture from Sri Lanka.
For our last day in Anuradhapura, we decided at the last minute to do one last safari in Wilpattu National Park. You can see pictures from that day here!
From Anuradhapura, we took a car directly to the Colombo airport and flew back to Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia. The flight was only a bit over 3 hours, but due to when we left (11 PM) and the time change (2 1/2 hours), we pretty much skipped an entire night's sleep. Fortunately, we'd planned for a "comfort stop" so we had a few scheduled days to rest and relax....
Nice post about Sri Lanka. Sri Lanka is a truly amazing place to visit. I came to this blog straight after reading this article.
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