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.

Sigiriya - Sri Lanka's Machu Picchu

 

Feb.14

            Our hotel provided us with another huge breakfast before Bernard caught up with us and we headed up to Sigiriya.  This place is considered the #1 attraction in Sri Lanka.  It was the capital of the country for a short time and sits up on a flat-top mesa with 360 degree views of the surrounding area.

            We arrived before noon to beat the crowds and skipped the onsite museum so that we could get going.  From the parking lot, you walk through huge areas of ruined foundations with the occasional pool or larger structure.  This walkway gave us an idea of how the city once spread out far beyond the mountain-topped centre.

            On the way up we saw signs telling us to be quiet due to killer hornets in the area, but fortunately we didn’t see any.  We were told that it used to be a real crunch to get to the top of Sigiriya but now the stairways are well-maintained with the up and down streams of people usually being separated. 

After about 15 minutes of walking up stone and then metal steps we paused at the first landing.  There was shade here but also monkeys so we had to keep our snacks close to us.  The main feature here was a huge pair of lion’s claws bracketing the stairs heading up the rest of the way.  The views were impressive but didn’t compare to what was coming.

The next set of stairs were steeper but over quicker.  There were a few narrow places where we had to wait for slower tourists but these were minimal.   In the stone beside the steel steps we saw footholds carved into the rock which were apparently part of an older ascent route.  These steps didn’t look too supportive and it was a long fall down should one slip.  We were definitely appreciative of the newer safety measures.

Lion paw steps.

            At the top of Sigiriya the ground was divided into a series of flat plateaus covered in ruined foundations or pools.  We could see a crew working on fixing some of these with a mortar that looked like it was made of the local soil, perhaps to follow original construction methods.  Again, the presence of the place probably isn’t captured in the pictures.  Being high above your surroundings in a ruined capital was a unique experience.

We poked around the site and looked at the views from all sides as well as what the tourists and workers were up to.  After about a leisurely 45 minutes or so we were ready to head down and move on.  Unsurprisingly, going down required less exertion.

            On the way down we went by a mirror wall, which was stone polished to a shine.  We also had the option to head up to a cave with Buddhist paintings, which was a trip that Meg and Devi declined but John and I were up for.  There were only about half a dozen figures visible as they were working on the cliffside pathway and so a large part of site was closed off.  The paintings were vivid and must have been restored as almost nothing of their background existed.  Most of the figures were bare-breasted women which varied from the Buddhist images we had seen in other places.  The real value of visiting the cave was the trip up and down on spiral stairs with a clear plastic exterior which allowed you to look up, down and outward from their cliffside location.

On the walk down we went through a few ruined areas, just less open and more bouldery this time.  Before hitting the parking lot there was the expected gauntlet of tourist shops but none of the vendors were particularly aggressive.

On the way back we stopped at a local farm shop and had a juice break, choosing from their extensive selection.  I tried the bakeapple and tamarind juices which were both thick and excellent.

The rest of the day was pretty lax.  We spent more time in the pool and went to the same place for dinner which was as good as we remembered.

Dambulla Cave Monastery Tour

 

Feb.13

            We had another yummy breakfast and got ourselves packed up to move on to our next place.  Our host, Bernard, was also to be our transport and guide for the next 5 days.  We left one of our bags at his place and the others came with us.  We picked up John and Devi and headed out of town with Bernard in his car.

            Driving in Sri Lanka is very much like being in a video game.  The lanes are merely guidelines and everyone is super aggressive.  The big trucks and busses just plow through where they will and it’s on the smaller vehicles to get out of the way.  The tuktuks and motorbikes weave through all of this, dodging the larger transports while trying to get ahead themselves.  Roundabouts are a game of chicken, with vehicles whipping around while they can and everyone else slowly edging in until those going around need to let them in, at which point their row bursts in as quick as they can around the other edging vehicles.  What’s amazing is that there’s almost no road rage.  Everyone is constantly cutting off everything else on the road but there’s nearly no honking and few drivers got mad.  Any one of these actions would have sent a Toronto motorist into a blind fury, but not here.  In India, people were constantly yelling and honking at everyone else on the road while they themselves drove like lunatics.

            Instead of heading to our hotel, we went right to the Dambulla cave monastery site which started off with about 15 minutes of climbing stairs.  It was a hot day so we took many breaks while hopeful flower and doodad sellers offered their wares.  At the top we had to hand over our shoes since this was a holy Buddhist site.  Those of us wearing socks were glad for this condition as the stone on the ground had been baking all morning.

You can see the cave structure in this pic.

            Dambulla is a World Heritage site with apparently 80 caves.  The 5 that we could visit were set up like Buddhist temples, having many Buddha statues and paintings inside. The way they were hollowed out used the organic lines of the cave nicely  and the images were all very well-looked after.  The decoration of the caves started around 100 BCE and the monastery is still active.  It’s really one of those places where photos don’t do it justice, the space has a presence and just by being there you feel like you’re somewhere special.  The larger caves were more impressive but they all were worth checking out and people were generally quiet in spite of many large school groups visiting.  Many signs were around, advising tourists of what they were not allowed to do.  They were repainting some of the figures in one cave and told us it was because a tourist had posted a disrespectful picture of herself with the statues online.  I guess by changing their appearance they were trying to nullify what was put on the internet.

        

What the cave complex looks like from the outside.

    Back in town we stopped at a local place full of families for lunch.  You basically ordered what kind of meat you wanted and had it over rice and curry.  It had a big open kitchen so that we could see it was clean.  Our waitress wasn’t confident in English and hurried away several times when we tried to order drinks, which was odd because two of our party could speak Sinhalese.  The food was still delicious with my fish being amongst the best that we had during our trip.

            The rest of the day was ours to relax at our hotel.  The place was hard to find as Google Maps didn’t have many of Dambulla’s street names but after asking around we got there.  We made good use of the swimming pool, which went well with our beer and chips. 

When it was dinner time a local staff member told us of a good place on the main road.  He even offered us a lift in his car as he said he was going there himself.  It was a buffet where you chose a starch and three curries and we took our time choosing.  The staff was really friendly and allowed us to go back into the serving area to check out what was on offer.  The food was great and they had lime sodas for us, which became our signature drink for fighting the heat of the country.  We called our car guy afterwards and he drove us back for a few rupees.  By this time jetlag had set in and we fell over and went to sleep as soon as we got to our room.

Botanical Gardens Trip

Feb. 12 

     Woke up and had an amazingly huge and delicious breakfast courtesy of Bernard’s wife. We were there for 5 days and it was different every day. The first day included string hoppers, which are completely different from hoppers. They’re more like rice noodles but served in a patty shape to mix with curries. Curries are served at every meal and there is often little difference between meals. This is not a bad thing, as rice and curry here means 4 or 5 curries with your rice as well as sambal, shaved coconut mixed with savory spices and chilis. Most of the tourists we met put Sri Lankan food only second to Thai in their travels, which is high praise. 

     After breakfast we got organized in our apartment for awhile before meeting Devi and John at the botanical gardens. We got there via Mohammed, a favourite tuktuk driver for Devi and John who was cheerful and chatty. 

     The gardens themselves resemble many colonial gardens, with trees from all over the world and an area of classicly British shaped bushes. Highlights included a series of trees hanging over the path heavy with squeaking bats and a giant Java fig tree which had a few dozen people picnicking under it and its own guard to shoo kids off of the fragile branches. Many families were out enjoying the greenery and it was a refreshing place for walking on a hot day.

    John and I walked back while Meg and Devi went to visit Devi’s sister in the hospital. Pedestrians are far down the pecking order in Sri Lanka, so John broke the journey down into easy and hard bits. The easy ones were walking along the sidewalk, which was often squares of concrete over open sewers which were sometimes broken or missing, forcing the walker onto the road. The hard parts wee crossing the street or roundabouts, where you had to be super vigilant to avoid getting run over or solidly bumped by some form of vehicle. 

     We made it to John and Devi’s place ahead of the women and had a fine chat with her dad. He’s in his 90s and not too mobile but has had an eventful life and is full of great stories. Once everyone got there we talked for a while longer and then called Mohammed to drive us back to our room. Nearby was another recommended restaurant that was part of a local chain. We ordered our food but forgot to remind them to make our juice without ice. Meg wanted her watermelon juice anyway, so made a toast to Hep C and took a swig. Unfortunately, the bottom of her glass fell out, covering her in the sticky, red juice. The staff, in full deer-in-headlights mode again, stayed away while she went to the bathroom to clean up. One brave soul came over and asked if she wanted more juice.

  

  Meg didn’t want to finish her meal in juicy clothes, so we got up to shift our order to take out. No one had cleaned up our table yet so we had to warn off a family that was starting to sit there. A manager finally took charge and deducted the juice from our bill with the rest of the staff keeping a frightened distance from us. 

     We walked our meal home (just meh again) and were glad that we had a kitchenette to dine in when we were told by one of the house staff that we had forgotten something at the restaurant. We checked our wallets and phones and insisted that we hadn’t, then one of the restaurant waiters came in with a new juice for Meg. Somehow in our conversation with them Meg had mentioned where we were staying so they knew where to find us. This juice came in a solid takeout cup and so Meg was able to enjoy it without enduring further trauma.

     After our meal, bed. We still were jetlagged and so by about mid-evening we would start to nod off so early to bed and early to rise was the order of the day.

Train ride to Kandy

 Feb.11

We got up early again and I went out hunting for breakfast.  I found a café that did cappuccinos and had pastries, but not the sweet ones we were used to.  These are called “short eats” and are pastries filled with savory vegetable and meat fillings.  I brought some back with our coffees and they made a fine breakfast.  “Short eats” often filled the gap when we needed a small meal during the day in our travels, as heat often reduced our appetites.

After breakfast, Devi and John had invited us along for a small group tour of a house built by the famous Sri Lankan architect Geoffrey Bawa.  It was only about a 15 minute walk from our hotel and so nicely handy.  The house was constructed of three former houses which he bought up and connected.  There were pools and plants everywhere with some areas built around or highlighting his favourite trees.  The rooms were all bright and filled with a variety of pieces he had collected from all over the world.  The spaces had a relaxed feeling that couldn’t be captured in pictures. It was fun exploring the house and checking out the view from the rooftop patio.  The master bedroom was available for rent (at quite a price, we’re told) so that was the only place off limits.  The tour organizer knew Devi’s family and so wouldn’t take our money.

Rentable living room in the Bawa house.

We went back to our room, checked out and then met Devi and John at the Colombo train station, which was smaller than I expected for such a large city.  They had the ticket so we were supposed to wait outside the station which really had no place to hang out.  We went to the information office and they told us we could buy tickets for 10 cents each to get in.  We did this, no one checked them and we hunkered down on a bench to wait.

They found us and we got onto a comfortable air-conditioned train with space to put our backpack on the upper rack.  On the trip we saw for the first time slums beside the tracks.  For most of our trip we encountered occasional beggars but not nearly so many as in Toronto.  We rarely saw makeshift housing but we were usually in touristic areas so I guess that wasn’t surprising. 

The trip was a nice one with the scenery improving as we got up into the mountains.  It took several hours as things move slower in Sri Lanka.  You can’t think of a 100 kms as an hour’s drive as it’s usually 3 and a half or more  here.  We chatted and snacked and enjoyed the ride.

View from the train.

On arrival we waited for their regular tuktuk driver and swatted a few mosquitoes at the station. 
They’ve eradicated malaria but dengue fever is a problem in Sri Lanka so applying deet became a regular ritual. 

We checked into their family friend Bernard’s air b’n’b, which was a large suite with a kitchenette and living room.  We walked down to the recommended restaurant which was a Sri Lankan international chain specializing in biryani. 

I was flipping through the menu and noticed that the last page was crawling with ants and so put the menu on the floor.  A waiter came by and took it before I could explain why.  He then came back with a menu that turned out to be the same one, still crawling so onto the floor it went.  He again took it before we could explain why.  Meg then went over to the cash and had to show them the ants before we got proper menus.  Another recurring theme was to be in a situation surrounded by multiple young staff who go all deer-in-headlights whenever something happens which might require them to assist someone.

Bernard's place.

Also, the biryani was just meh.  The restaurant at least was a short walk from where we were staying so we were able to fall into bed soon after dinner.

First real Day - Exploring Colombo

 

Feb. 10

We got up fairly early and ready for breakfast.  A short walk away was a café attached to a hotel where we started the food part of our trip.  We went for the Sri Lankan breakfast which included three kinds of hoppers and some chutney.  Hoppers are more or less bowl-shaped coconut crepes cooked with thin sides and a thick bottom.  We had two egg hoppers each and a sugar hopper.  Very tasty.

The place had real coffee and cool fans as well as a view of the road and the ocean with trains frequently going between the two.  We were surprised to see the doorman swigging from a 40 ounce alcohol bottle at 8 am but later found out that was normal behaviour in this country.  Liquor bottles are sturdy and have good screw caps so we noticed many drivers and workers swigging water from them as they toiled.  Considering that most of the time we were there the temperature was mid-30s before humidex, water was always a necessity to have on hand.

We headed back to the hotel to freshen up before heading out on our one day in Colombo.  It is by far the largest city in Sri Lanka but all of the guide books recommend leaving there as quickly as possible as they say there is little to see in the city. 

Our coconut vendor

Our helpful hotel staff helped us book a tuktuk and we headed off to the big downtown market.  This is a crowded place that covers blocks of the central city.  There are some fancy shops but it’s mainly small stalls selling produce or household items.  The streets are crowded with tuktuks and other vehicles squeezing by all of the people and lots of action happening.  Down side pathways were narrow passages  where shops mainly sold trinkets on a wholesale basis.  If you lived in Colombo, this is where the bargains would probably be had.   I found some local electrical adapters and we drank and ate from a green coconut sliced open with a machete.  Once we finished drinking he took the coconut back, sliced a sliver off the outside and chopped it open.  The sliver was used as a scoop to get out the gelatinous coconut meat out before discarding the whole shell. 

The Market

We wanted to see the red mosque but it was set to open 30 minutes later than the internet told us so we went in pursuit of lunch.  We avoided the restaurant closest to the mosque as a tout had attached himself to us and we didn’t want him hassling the restaurant for his cut for tourists eating there.  We went around the corner to what was probably a typical local place.  We ordered rotis and parathas, with my parathas coming with scoops of curry and condiments on a metal plate wet with tap water.  Our drinks both had ice in them, which was something we were avoiding but I didn’t notice mine had any until I got close to the bottom as it was a creamy drink.  They kept offering me more curry and we had tea there while watching locals come and go.

Back at the red mosque, we were let in by a vendor at the gate and were able to watch men walk around and worship through an iron gate while we waited for our tour to begin.   A bunch of us waited for about 45 minutes until a man with little English started to hand around robes for the women and insufficiently dressed men to wear.  About 20 minutes after that our guide arrived, which was only a few minutes before the mosque was supposed to close for tours for the afternoon.  He led us through the building giving us a little bit of information but letting us have lots of time to poke around.  The mosque was set up with the most ornate work in the old building and the new building comprising several floors of large open spaces able to accommodate 10,000 worshippers.  The view from the roof was impressive, but the best views were really of the outside of the building from the street.  The use of red and white was quite striking from a distance but the work on the inside didn’t compare with what we had seen in Morocco and Turkey.

The Red Mosque.

After the tour we were hot and tired and wanted to head home.  We talked to a few tuktuk drivers but the process was long, with many of them needing to go to nearby stores to help translate our bargaining.  Touts tried to do this for us, which always inflated the price.  We finally found someone for a reasonable amount and he tried to be a tour guide by pointing out some random building along our way home.   He made some excuse about needing directions and tried to get us to go into a gem store,  Meg gave him an angry rant about how awful gems were and what a scourge status symbols are on society.  We finally got home and he tried to tell me that we had a agreed on $7 American for the ride, not 700 Rupees ( a large difference).  When we dismissed this he then went on about how he deserved a tip but we weren’t listening to him by that point.  When we got back to our room I installed the PickMe app on the phone to book rides so that we could be spared such problems in the future.

We met our friends Devi and John at a nearby café and had lime sodas and fruit juice in a fan-cooled courtyard of a local fair trade store, Barefoot.  We grabbed some lunch and went around the neighbourhood in search of an ATM.   The fees varied greatly here (from nothing to $5) and my card consistently worked while Meg’s only sometimes worked, even at bank branches where it had worked before. 

We met Devi and John at their hotel, which had a stunning glass wall view of the city, and headed out to Devi’s relatives' place for dinner.  This was a house that was newly renovated and stunning, with an ornate wooden wall from a library on one side of the large living room across from an enormous chandelier.  There was a nice open courtyard with trees and fish and well restored antiques all over the space.  We were introduced to many family members and had good conversations and excellent local food throughout the evening.  Soon after 9, though, the jetlag set in and Meg and I could barely keep our eyes open. We said goodnight and grabbed a tuktuk back to our room, where we fell over almost immediately. 

Dinner!

Transit Day - Getting there

 

Feb. 9

We left Toronto just before a snowstorm was expected (not the BIG one) and so were quite pleased with ourselves about our timing.  We sat with a charming woman from Kerala who surprisingly had a special meal delivered marked “bland”.  You’d think that was the default setting for airplane food, but you can request it to be even blander.  To be fair , the biryani on the first leg of the trip was quite good. We figured that with the airport being so close to Brampton that they might have gotten in touch with some decent Indian caterers.

We had screens with a good selection of movies and talked with some of our fellow passengers by the bathroom as we stretched our legs every few hours.  It was about as painless as a 14 hour flight can be.

We were warned that the Abu Dhabi airport was confusing with gates set very far apart but we got to ours quickly and enjoyed cleaner and more spacious washrooms than any plane could offer.

The next 4 hour flight was more problematic.  The Etihad website showed that our seats were bulkhead, meaning more legroom, but it was all a terrible lie.  Add a lack of entertainment centres and meh food to the mix and one gets an unsatisfactory 4 hour flight.

We were warned to have extra copies of our Sri Lankan visas as well as copies of our COVID histories available but they weren’t necessary.  As part of he visa process, I had to upload passport images that had a readable barcode so customs had all of our info on their screens as soon as they scanned our passports.  After a quick confirmation of our existences we were inside the arrivals terminal.

We were worried about our pick up for a short time as our driver was sitting down with his sign with our names on it partially obscured, but we tracked him down.  This was at about 8:30pm local time and the hour drive from the airport to Colombo was smooth and fast.

Our hotel appeared to be up a dark alley but our room was large and clean with filtered drinking water and a firm mattress.  Everywhere we ended up staying over the three weeks had a good mattress, not sure why but it was very welcome.  We had a 10 1/2 hour time difference to deal with so it was lucky that we were exhausted after our trip and it was about 10:30 pm local time when we got sorted and were able to fall into bed.