The Ancient City of Polonnaruwa

 

Feb.15

           

            After another hearty breakfast we parted ways, with Devi and John grabbing a bus back to Kandy and Meg and I continuing with Bernard for three days of visiting ancient cities.

            On the drive there we went by a few national parks with empty parking lots.  Bernard explained that people go on elephant safaris but not to specific parks.  The guides follow the elephants so that on any given day some parks might have almost no visitors while others are overflowing.  We managed to see one by the side of the road with a few other vehicles pulled over to have a look.  Bernard said that that particular elephant was almost always there.

            We went straight to the site of Polonnaruwa and got two large tickets with many perforations that were gradually ripped down as we checked out various sites.  The ticket booth opened into a busy museum, which had many fine pieces recovered from the site.  Most interestingly it had models of what the buildings used to look like and sequential photos showing various sites’ progressions from identification to restoration.

            It was made a capital city in the 10^th century after rulers got tired of their old capital constantly being invaded and pillaged by India.  They set up what is called a “tank” (artificial lake) and a complex irrigation system to serve a large city with many impressive buildings.  Of the two cities we ended up visiting, Polonnaruwa was better preserved but not quite as sprawling (though it was plenty big).  Bernard took us through about a dozen areas with our tickets slowly diminishing in size.  Many places had forests of pillars as well as some carvings, still in great shape.  We wore nice, thick socks as we were warned that many of the most impressive sites were still holy for Buddhists, meaning long walks on hot stone with no shoes.  The palace here was one of the tallest buildings in the world in its time at seven stories and all sites were busy with tourists.  There were some enormous Buddhas statues as well as ruined foundations stretching out in all directions and into the woods.  We did tons of walking in the hot sun but the sights were well worth it.

          

  Bernard drove us down a long dirt road to our hotel, which was a small cabin right by the “tank”.  Apparently, the owner had to keep the structures small because of restrictions for building on protected land.  The room with small but functional.  The big attraction was the porch, which had a mesh around it to keep out larger animals.  The porch looked onto the lake and we could watch all of the birds coming and going as well as a steady stream of monkeys and even a wolverine.  John had given us some beer before we left so we spent what was left of the afternoon reclining on our porch and checking out the wildlife.  They even had a cupboard with everything you would need to make yourself some tea, but we did not avail ourselves of it in the heat.

            There was a highly recommended restaurant nearby so we set off early as we had to get up in the dark the next day for our sunrise lake tour.  It was down some dirt roads that were so identical that we marked the one we came in on so that we could find our way back.  Some kids followed us for part of our journey and threw a rock that might have been meant for us before disappearing, which made the area feel creepy.  The restaurant offered cooking classes to busloads of tourists and so had large cooking areas that were empty on our arrival.  The eating area was also empty except for a series of clay puts sitting over candles.  It was one of the few places we went that had many mosquitoes so we re-applied some DEET.  We spent most of our trip soaked in repellent and sunscreen as Dengue fever is a thing in Sri Lanka and being white Canadians in the middle of winter, we were prone to sunburn.  Eventually a girl came out who had a little English to take our juice orders and put down a mosquito coil.  We were the only diners in the large, covered outdoor area.  When she came back with our drinks, she went around and stirred about a dozen different pots.  We were given woven plates covered with a banana leaf and given a quick description of the pots.  It was an all-you-can-eat buffet which we didn’t need but it was the only place around.  Many of the dishes were quite good and so we did go back for seconds.  The mom then came out and offered us tea and dessert.  By the time we finished we were still the only ones there and really felt like we were in the middle of nowhere. 

      It was dark when we headed back but we were able to find our correct path.  Along the way, a few dogs started to follow us and then once we got to the main road they encountered a rival faction of dogs and had a snarling standoff.  Sri Lanka has occasional cats roaming about but stray dogs are everywhere.  They are mainly very similar breeds of brownish-yellow and in varying states of health.  They would often lie on busy roads and not even get up when cars and trucks came really close to them.  They are usually docile on their own but, like we saw in Istanbul, they can get aggressive when they’re in a pack.  We had a standoff going on in front of us with no way around it.  Our momentary conundrum was solved when a motorbike came by, dividing the forces and letting us by.

            Back at our cabin, we settled in for the night.  We didn’t sleep great because of nearby hammering that started at about 2:30 am.  Later on, our host explained that they were woodworkers chiseling souvenirs for tourists and worked at night to avoid the heat.