Day 105 - Polonnaruwa, Sri Lanka

Day 105 -  His.

We are staying in a small hotel called The Village and it isn’t a patch on where we were last night though still pretty good in itself. It was a bit unfortunate that we spent such a short time at our last hotel. But as I say this one isn’t so bad. It’s arranged in a series of little chalets that are the rooms and breakfast is the usual – for here – buffet. The beds are ridiculously soft. When I got in it last night I sank into the mattress up to my ears. Soft beds can be a real curse and I slept pretty badly. But coffee and an omelette sorted that and I was ready for the morning. The morning incidentally was pretty superb. We had bikes waiting for us and the plan was to cycle round the ruins of the old town. This was a good idea.

If you are British – the idea of a medieval town conjures up an image of twisty streets and small compact buildings and quite a lot of tea shoppes. This place, though medieval, was quite different. It is a large collection of ruins that had once been covered by the jungle and rediscovered by the British who spent quite a bit of time rebuilding it – badly, and is spread out over a rather large acreage.

We started off at the southern ruins and cycled first to the Parakrama Samudra, a collection of ruined old houses with a large statue of the king, Parakramabahu. (who is some old medieval  king from the second kingdom of Sri Lanka – our guide, who is pretty knowledgeable, did tell us about it but I have forgotten – so feel free to look it up). Apparently he was a great farmer and renowned for blowing his own trumpet. Every great work done in the area was claimed by him even if he hadn’t actually had anything to do with it. After that we cycled along a large man made reservoir called the Sea of Parakramabahu. We continued onto the museum. It was a small place but well set out and a good collection of models of the city as it should have been and a fine collection of sculpture. But perhaps the most memorable thing was one of the locals who was visiting the museum at the time wanted to have his photo taken with the Aussie guy of the group. A little bemused our new Australian friend agreed and ended up just outside the main building holding hands with this stranger and posing for photos. It was something of a new experience for him and I don’t think he has quite gotten over it. The next place was called The Citadel which had the royal palace, the council chambers then the royal baths. (Also a rat with a mole-like snout at the bottom of the royal septic tank.) All pretty impressive ruins that the British had put back together – again, wrongly – one of the elephant carvings had 5 legs.

The we went to a hindu temple the Shiva Deval, a tiny place with an obvious phallus in the inner chamber that everybody wandered around nodding and saying – yes, that’s a penis. Then we went to the quadrangle a collection of administrative buildings all of which were impressive but the complex had a large stone carving called ‘the book’ which mostly was a record of the kings boasting. It was here he claimed he had built everything since time began. Oddly enough the whole area is full of puppies. There are literally hundreds of them and every time our guide squats down they come up to lick his face.

From there went up to a large stupa surrounded by shrines. Gal Vihara a large – and by large I mean large – stone carved out with 4 Buddha statues. The statues were 6 or 7 meters high and the guards were pretty serious about making sure the visitors showed due respect. Several people got yelled at for crimes ranging from using an umbrella to trying to hug one of the statues and one of the statues has a gunshot wound from some drunken British colonial who thought it was an elephant. All in all a very cool morning.

 

Day 105 – Hers.

I loved the cycle ride – especially the ride back along well-paved routes through the village and along the reservoir.  We really must get our bikes out at home more often....

There was supposed to be an optional activity this afternoon of a jeep safari into one of the national parks – but all the recent rain has meant that the grasslands and tracks are flooded and the animals don’t come out into open anyway so Deva advised that it may not be safe and it probably wouldn’t be worth the expense.  He really needn’t worry about us seeing wildlife, though – we have seen an amazing assortment in the hotel and temple grounds.  Yesterday, we saw three land monitors, a turtle, several chipmunks, a cave full of large bats and a huge variety of birds and butterflies.  I was awoken at half past 5 this morning by the males of the monkey family resident in our hotel grounds shaking a tree for the fruit that then rolled off our roof.  Several of the family then sat outside our door to have their breakfast.  The babies were a bit timid; they peeked down from the hotel rafters and scampered away when they saw me.  It seems that half past one is lunchtime because there was a repeat performance when we arrived back from our cycle ride.  One of the large males bared his teeth at Petra (a medical practice manager from Leeds who has the room next to ours) when she closed her door loudly – fancy interrupting his civilised meal.....  Two mongooses (mongeese?) also slinked across the wall behind our room and climbed a tree – I thought I might have seen a mongoose once in India...these were so close that there was absolutely no doubt at all.  We have been astounded at the number of dogs, puppies, cats and kittens that live near the temples.  One particularly friendly dog took a liking to Deva this morning, licking his legs and sitting in the middle his sand diagram as he tried to explain the history of one of the palaces.  We haven’t, thank goodness, yet seen any snakes.  There are reportedly more deaths from snakebite in Sri Lanka than in any other country.  One member of our group – an accountant with KPMG in London – is so afraid of snakes that even just seeing a picture of one causes a panic attack; I hope for her sake (and ours...) that it is one form of the local wildlife we miss altogether.

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In place of the jeep safari, we had a free afternoon.  There was a short heavy downpour, but many of the group went for a swim after it had finished and sat around the pool.  Caroline, the young Texan, also went for a run. (Apparently, she saw two snakes. So much for not having seen any.... I always knew running was bad for you....)  Rob and I decided to have a sleep when the rain began – and didn’t wake up until it was time to get ready for dinner......

We had a special ‘jungle dinner’ this evening.  We went by bus to a jungle lodge where we ate a huge feast around a campfire and were entertained by our guide, driver, his assistant and a couple of locals playing a drum – and beer bottles ‘strummed’ with rocks – and singing traditional songs.  The empty beer bottle instruments were interesting – one of the Aussie lads (the same one who was photographed holding hands with a local this morning – maybe he looks like a rock star) joined in with his own empty beer bottle – maybe he’ll start his own bottle band at home and actually become a rock star!

The meal was spectacular – traditional rice with curry, of course, but the curries were made with everything the guidebooks list as traditional Sri Lankan fare: breadfruit, okra and pumpkin, as well as the combinations we had seen previously.  We all tried the local spirit as well – it’s called arack and tastes like a very mellow whiskey.  We mixed it with cola; it was very nice indeed and ensured a jolly party and a good night’s sleep for us all.