Sri Lanka Part 1: Ruins and Buddhism (and Christmas)

First views: from the air!

I've decided I'll need to split up my retelling of the amazing adventure that was my 10 day trip to Sri Lanka, for your reading pleasure as much as for my own sanity. We saw so much, had so many silly encounters, and took so many pictures that I just wouldn't be able to do it justice in only one post. So here goes:

For a little bit of background: My office more or less closed from December 20 until it reopens on January 5, minus a handful of people hanging around the headquarters holding down the fort. With no classes going on at our centers, most of the teachers took off for a couple weeks to various places: some went home, many went to Thailand, a handful to Indonesia. With holiday flights from KL to Newark at roughly an arm and a leg, plus a firstborn child in airport taxes, and feeling that I wanted to go somewhere a little further from Malaysia, I settled on Sri Lanka. I even coerced a Canadian coworker into coming with me. The travel agent in me started planning the trip months ago - I booked my flight in August - and after making my way from the jungle to KL two weeks ago, I boarded the plane on the 21st.

Polonnaruwa

Ruins of the Royal Palace

Though we flew into the capital, Colombo, after hearing and reading nothing good about the city, we traveled immediately north to Polonnaruwa, an ancient city boasting a huge collection of ruins to explore and rocks to climb on. Because I landed late in the afternoon and it was something of a trek (6-8 hours by train or bus, I'd read) up to the city, we hired a driver to take us there. It seemed faster and much easier to get a door to door transfer, especially given the late hour and the small but still meaningful time difference. We met the driver, and he told us that he needed to call the guesthouse we'd booked because there had been dime flooding and it might not be possible to get there. Not a great start, but in the end he decided that the roads were above water, but might just be a little slower than usual. We headed out, and I watched the town out the window as the sun set. It seemed lively, with lots of small stands and hawkers. As we got into smaller towns (highways didn't seem common) Buddhist statues and temples started to become commonplace - pretty white domes (stupas, I learned) and massive idols carved in stone. The rain picked up, and we were traveling quite slowly, so that I checked the clock and realized we'd been driving six hours, although the driver had told us three, four to be safe. Megan and I were both starving - we hadn't eaten since the morning - and we were driving into what seemed to be jungle. The driver didn't seem to be completely confident about where we were going - several times he called someone, asking questions in an asking-for-directions voice (I know that voice when I hear it). Just as Megan and I were beginning to shoot each other dubious looks and raised eyebrows, a tuk tuk driver appeared in front of us on the otherwise deserted dirt road, and we began following him. This turned out to be the owner of the guesthouse, leading us there. More relieved than I was willing to admit at the time, we got out of the car and were shown to our room. The inn was set up motel-style, with the doors to the rooms all leading out to a common patio in the front, where two dining tables stood. We asked the owner whether there was anywhere to get something to eat, and he said "I'll try" and walked off. We weren't sure exactly what he meant, and we would have been happy with a slice of bread or a piece of fruit, but about a half hour later he showed up with a full meal that he'd prepared - the best rice (from his own rice paddies, he told us), curries (daal and chicken), poppadoms... It was so delicious - we ate as much as we could, but hardly made a dent. He sat out with us chatting away, as though it wasn't the middle of the night, until we'd finished, then gathered up our dishes and told us there'd be breakfast in the morning. We turned in, exhausted from the day of travel, and fell asleep almost immediately.

Elephant carving at the Council Chamber

The following day, we woke up reasonably early. We only had one day in the city, so we wanted to get to the ruins as quickly as possible, to give ourselves the whole day to explore. We didn't end up making it out so early, though, as we went out to the patio to find a huge, delicious Sri Lankan breakfast - sweet rice with coconut honey, pineapple, and wonderful tea - laid out for us. We ate slowly, chatting with the owner and two other guests, and didn't end up leaving until around 10. We decided to walk the (rainy) 5 kilometers to the ruins. By the time we reached the museum entrance, we were soaked, so we decided to warm up with a cup of tea and a vegetable curry pastry in a cafe there. As we were leaving, we grabbed a tuk tuk driver to act as our tour guide for the ruins, as they are quite spread out (on a nicer day we may have used bicycles, but in the rain that seemed unpleasant). Our first stop was the museum, although we didn't spend long in there (it was interesting to read about the history of the place, but it seemed silly to spend any time looking at pictures of the things we were about to see in real life). From there we drove on into the ancient city. We saw the Royal Palace (two enormous structures - the 3 remaining stories of the former 7), the Council Chamber (four walls covered in beautifully carved elephants and lions, and a gorgeous staircase guarded by some ferocious looking stone animals), and the King's Bath (beautiful bathhouses, but I'm still partial to the Romans). Then we drove on to through the rest of the ruins, making short stops every so often to walk around. My favorite was the Vattadage, a holy structure originally built to hold the Tooth Relic (now residing in Kandy... more on that later). There were lots of beautiful carvings (including a Moonstone - a semi-circular stone piece that sits on the floor at the entrance to a sacred site, for cleansing one's feet before he or she enters) and four Buddha statues inside. Although the place was swarming with tourists, it still seemed peaceful to walk around (there is something about walking barefoot). Our last stop was an enormous carving - four figures in various positions. They were absolutely immense - the largest is 46 feet long. The same driver returned us to our hotel, where we picked up our bags, and then dropped us at the bus stand to await our bus to Sigiriya.

Council Chamber

Staircase to the Council Chamber

Royal Bath

Ruins of the Vattadage

Sigiriya

The bus ride was easy and short - although rather cramped, as the bus was completely full and we were lucky to nab two of the last available seats. When we got off, we found ourselves in a quiet town, with a few tea shops and not much else. The famous Sigiriya Rock, our reason for making the trip there, was about 8 kilometers further down the road, but we wouldn't be heading there until the next day. We grabbed a tuk tuk and made our way to the guesthouse, which turned out to be a massage spa, with a couple of rooms behind. It's possible that during the dry season it is quite a nice area, but with all the rain the walk back behind the spa turned into a trudge through a swamp (at some places the water was ankle-deep) so that everything was muddy and wet by the time we reached the room. We didn't have any big plans for the evening, so we just relaxed for a couple of hours before venturing out into the rain to find some dinner. The rain discouraged us from traveling very far - we ended up just walking to the hotel across the street. Their buffet was not set up yet, but they invited us to sit and were at least accommodating enough to serve us tea while we waited for the dinner to be ready. It didn't end up being prepared until around 7:30, so by the time we were on our way back to the guesthouse it was pretty late and very dark (streetlights don't seem to be a popular commodity in Sri Lanka). It was still raining. Suddenly, as we made our way across the yard, the spa's many dogs started barking like crazy and running at us. Unsure what to do, we brandished our umbrellas at them, yelling for someone to come. The owners of the spa were standing on the porch, calling and calling for them to come back (although without the appropriate level of worry, I think). Finally they slowed down, and the owners shouted to us "No problem, they're nice dogs!" One came trotting up to us with his tail wagging and followed us all the way back to our room, where we locked the door quickly and went to bed.

We woke up pretty early the next day, checked out of the room, and headed down the road to catch the bus to the rock. The bus was full, again, but this time with a lot of foreign tourists, so we figured we were on the right track. Along the way, I saw out the window a huge group of people gathered around a bridge, looking at something. I looked, too, and was reasonably sure it had been an elephant, except for the fact that that seemed ridiculous. Our stop was not too far beyond that, so Megan and I walked back to check it out, and it was indeed an elephant, having a bath on the side of the road.

We had breakfast - unbelievably spicy, even by our Malaysian standards - and then headed over to the rock. The rain started (of course) but not too hard, just hard enough to make walking in it a little unpleasant. The road led us around a pond, boasting a sign that warned: "No Swimming: Crocodiles Go About." Finally, we rounded a bend and the massive rock came into view:

The site was the palace of the King in the 5th century, and promised gardens at the top, as well as murals and frescoes along the wall of the rock on the way up. We did another quick walkthrough of the museum, and then headed up. It was pretty crowded, and the rain was on and off (better than just on) but the stream of people moved quickly, despite the slippery stone steps. At every pause, we just turned around and admired the incredible view.

View from about halfway up. That tiny white speck near the center of the photo is an enormous Buddha statue in the distance.

The walls were covered in these frescoes - fantastically preserved

Found this guy eating a banana - peel and all

It took maybe 45 minutes to reach the top, including pauses to admire the frescoes, and to catch our breath every now and then. The gardens at the top were more like a series of terraces and pools, but they were still beautiful!

We made our way back down, then walked out to the main road. We had lunch, then made our way to the bus stand to continue on our way to Kandy. I was pretty excited about Kandy - I'd heard lots of good things about the supposed "cultural capital" of Sri Lanka, so I was expecting a kind of bustling tourist city.

Kandy
After the 3+ hour bus ride was over, we disembarked in what I supposed to be Kandy's downtown area. It was rather quiet, but there were shops and restaurants along the main street. We grabbed another tuk tuk, which took us around the beautiful lake and up a steep mountainside, finally depositing us at our hotel. After checking in, having a shower, and cleaning up a bit, we decided to head out, find some dinner, and see the city by night. Judging by our host's reaction, that doesn't seem to be a common thing to do. He suggested that we just order food and beers to our room, but we were persistent and set off down the road. We followed the edge of the lake in the dark, finally returning to the place where the bus had left us, and then just made our way down the main street. After being misdirected several times, we found only one bar/restaurant (The Pub), which was filled almost exclusively with tourists and whose menu featured almost exclusively (expensive) Western food. Still, we were happy to have a dry place to sit for a while, and the staff was friendly and helpful - one server even invited us to his church's Midnight Christmas Eve Mass the following night. We hung out for a couple hours, then headed back to the hotel and called it a night.

The following morning, Megan and I split up - she wanted to go to the nearby elephant orphanage, but I wasn't too interested in that - so after a breakfast on the way into town, I headed to the Temple of the Tooth - a Buddhist temple that now houses a tooth taken from Buddha's mouth after his death. The temple itself was beautiful - all white outside, matching all the white that the worshippers were wearing.

Outer wall of the temple

Front gate, with elephant carvings

Inside was even more beautiful: a kind of covered courtyard, with various shrines and buildings around it.

To see the place where the relic itself is kept, I walked up a staircase, and then joined a line which wrapped around the edges of the wall on the second floor. The center of the space was reserved for people praying - a group of men and women holding infants and young children was sitting there, and other worshippers were placing flowers, food, and coins on a table already laden with beautiful gifts. The shrine was beautiful, although the line was kept moving so that we weren't able to stop and stare and really appreciate it, but the room was decorated with silver and gold, and beautifully painted murals. Leaving the temple, I continued on to a museum which documented the movement of the relic into and around Sri Lanka - a story told through some fifteen or so beautiful paintings with short descriptions beneath them. The walls were also decorated with these guys with strong noses:

From there I spent a couple hours in the Museum of World Buddhism, which was interesting just because I don't know that much about Buddhism or its spread around the world. The museum is the only one in the world of its kind and describes first the basic principles of Buddhism and its beginnings, and then is divided into rooms dedicated to each country with a significant Buddhist population. The national museums of each have donated from their collections various artifacts important to their home country's celebration of the religion, so that each room is fabulously decorated with national Buddhist symbols. Some countries - like China - are absolutely filled, floor to ceiling, with such things, while others - like Myanmar - were rather small, but still beautiful:

Tapestry in the Myanmar display

Once I'd finished walking through the museum, I headed back outside into the rain. I walked a short while around the lake, determined to get the most out of the day, despite the terrible weather. I'm sure it's very beautiful on a sunny day, but as it was, the water and the sky were grey. Still worth the walk though: 

Palm trees and gardens on a small island in the lake

Hillside houses in Kandy

Once Megan found me again, we grabbed a quick Christmas Eve dinner of noodles and rice and then went back to the hotel to get ready for the midnight service we'd been invited to. We went down early, hoping to find a cup of tea to warm us back up - once the sun went down and the rain became torrential it was pretty cold! - but found that not a single shop was open. Defeated, we just went to the church and waited there. We were greeted by one of the ushers, sat down, and waited. As more and more people arrived, we met the server from the previous night, who wished us a Merry Christmas and introduced us to his family. The service started, and with the singing of "O Come All Ye Faithful" we both really felt that it was Christmas, despite the lack of snow, families, and pine trees. After the service ended, as we were making our way out, we met two older British women, who offered us a sip of "water" from the plastic water bottle they were sharing. It seemed strange to me, and as it turned out they were actually sipping gin and tonic, and had been all throughout the Mass. Merry Christmas.