Day 103 - Pinnawela, Mihintale and Anuradhapura, Sri Lanka

Day 103 – His.

The main reason, it seems, for getting up at 5 in the morning was so that we could get to the elephant orphanage in time to see the herd being fed and taken for a bath. All very well in theory – but not so much fun when you are stumbling around trying to find a missing sock and the sun hasn’t even come up. Still, Patti had made me a coffee- we really are in civilisation again: the hotel rooms have kettles and the jar of coffee we have lugged all over India (the same one we bought in Nepal) has at last come in handy – so, after a coffee, and a successful hunt for the missing sock we grabbed our hotel-provided breakfast box and headed out for the bus. The breakfast was supposed to be a chicken sandwich – it turned out to be boiled egg – which is chicken in a way – and a banana. Actually it was pretty nice and I ate mine fairly soon after setting off. The idea, no doubt, is to watch the passing countryside. But, to be honest, I fell asleep.

I took only two and a half hours to get to the orphanage. Apparently, Sri Lanka has 5,600 native Asian elephants and from that number quite a few suffer some mishap and end up at the orphanage where they are looked after until they can be returned to the wild. The orphanage has a herd of some 65 elephants from new borns right the way through to one blind old elephant with enormous tusks and quite a bad temper.

We all piled off the bus and wandered around the main buildings for a bit having a look at the keepers taking care of their charges and going off to the paddock where most of the herd hangs out. To be honest I have never seen that many elephants in one place and the sheer number of them was a sight well worth seeing. Around ten the keepers march them through the town and down to the river for a bath. It is quite something to see a herd of elephants walking through a high street – they raise quite a lot of dust. The orphanage has spawned quite a little industry around it – of course – and the place in the river where they bathe has seen quite a few cafes spring up with viewing lounges where you can see the herd play in the water from the comfort of a padded chair with a nice beer and air conditioning. I have to say I preferred what we did in Chitwan where, basically, we got in the river with the elephants and rolled around with them a bit. Although awe inspiring the Sri Lankan version was a little surreal.

After the elephants we had a two hour drive to lunch. I strongly suspect that the tour has to get us from A to B and in order to do this it has a few stops every two hours or so to make the journey more enjoyable. However, they do it very well and it was certainly a fun day. So, lunch was at a little local restaurant where the main thing on offer was a ‘buffet’. Actually it was about half a dozen large clay pots of this and that that you helped yourself to. After eating all of my breakfast and half of Patti’s I wasn’t that hungry so I passed on it, though Patti tucked in and she tells me it was very good – if not spicy enough.

 

Day 103 – Hers.

Lunch was the traditional rice with curry that I have now had three times.  They had clearly toned down the spices for Westerners, but there was a little dish of the very spicy salad at the end that I mixed in to get the heat I enjoy – and another dish of very, very hot chilis that even I passed on..... A nice addition was some fried fish, served at the table. 

After lunch we drove another hour and a half to Mihintale – the birthplace of Sri Lankan Buddhism.  Apparently, the Buddha visited Sri Lanka three times in his lifetime and this was where he made an agreement with the king to spread Buddhism throughout China and Southeast Asia.  We climbed the steps to the impressive large white stupa and photographed the large Buddha statue and surrounding countryside.  We then climbed up a huge rock hill – some parts steps, some parts just indentations in the rock to a viewing platform for an even better view.  However, beautiful and impressive the vibrant, colourful, busy Hindu temples are, I prefer the quiet simplicity and serenity of the Buddhist holy sites.  Our guide, Deva, explained again how the Buddha came to be enlightened and we wandered around for nearly an hour.  As with many other temples we have seen, the wildlife provided an additional attraction.  There were scurrying chipmunks, monkeys nursing and disciplining their babies (apparently the done thing in the monkey world if junior starts to wander is to haul him back by his tail and then give him a big cuddle...) and two very odd turkey-like birds no doubt pleased that Thanksgiving is only celebrated half a world away......

Another short drive to Anuaradhapura – an ancient capital city – saw us arrive at another lovely hotel.  The standards of accommodation on this tour so far have been much more comfortable than those in Nepal or India.  Our room has a balcony overlooking a lake; we have a kettle, hair dryer, swimming pool, bar and wifi (though the wifi seems to be extremely slow and we haven’t actually managed to connect yet).

I couldn’t manage dinner after such an enormous lunch, so Rob went off on his own to join the group – he prefers the Westernised hotel food.  I am happy to wait until our next local meal tomorrow lunchtime.