The ancient city of Anuradhapura

 

Feb. 17

            We got up early and grabbed our breakfast to go in order to beat the heat.  It was Monday, so the weekend pilgrims had gone back home.  For most of the day, we had the sites of Anuradhapura almost to ourselves which added to the atmosphere of the ruins. 

            We started at the museum, which was full of pieces recovered from the sites but with not so many photos and models as in the previous museum.  After poking around for a bit we settled in a green area by the parking lot to eat our breakfasts with some workers just arriving at the museum.  The standard breakfast sandwich we were given was full of scrambled egg with spices and vegetable, served between two slices of wonder bread.  At breakfast too, wonder bread was served but we usually left it untouched as we enjoyed roti, paratha or hoppers.  One of the places we stayed at explained that the Sri Lankan bread was cooked from scratch and not sold in supermarkets  so wonder bread was easier to prepare.  We would have been okay with almost anything else but the sweet, spongy stuff we were given did not make for a pleasant sandwich.

Stupa repair crews.

 Bernard and I quickly retreated to the car to finish our meal due to the many stray dogs in the park.  Meg stayed and managed to keep her meal to herself.  We noticed later that the workers brought food for the dogs so they expected us to provide for them as well.  Bernard told us that all of the street dogs went to homes at night but we found that difficult to believe.

Meg and Bernard by the monks' pool.

            From there we drove around and looked at various stupas and ruined areas.  We were familiar with stupas, so mainly admired them from a distance and moved on.  The ruined areas were nice to walk around as there were so few tourists.  There was the occasional well-defined piece on display but most of the areas were covered with broken foundations.  The most interesting part was by the former monastery which housed thousands of monks.  We saw the pits where their meals were cooked and served and a huge pool that they used for bathing which was very peaceful to sit by.

            Once we had explored the highlights of the site and exhausted our tickets we headed back to Kandy.  Along the way, Bernard wanted us to lunch at a real local place by the side of the road and we had a tasty feed of rice and curry there.  For dessert, he wanted me to try the jaggery pudding, which looked like an unappetizing brown blob but had a wonderful creme brulee taste to it.

            Back in Kandy we got ourselves organized and then went out for dinner, this time to a smaller local place that smelled wonderful as we approached it.  The aroma was due to the barbecue in front of the place that was charring chicken, which we ate with nice, cool virgin mojitos.  No juice explosions or ants crawling on the menu, just good food and only a short walk away from where we were staying.  Yum!