Boa Vista Guest House Anuradhapura

... crossing the road in front of me. Snake - here is an animal I&#8217;d not thought about before and I must admit was too keen on knowing there were such big snakes in the area!! I really enjoyed riding amongst the monkeys though - they are extremely funny!<br><br>I am now back the hotel and the rain as started as usual every evening :-( but it&#8217;s all good. I am just going to back into town get myself some cigarettes and a couple of drinks :-).

... the sights. By this time, much of my morning had gone. But I had had plenty of time to look around the countryside and a bit of the town and I really liked what I was seeing. Apart from the countryside being very pretty, it was also reasonably well maintained and I couldn&#8217;t see piles of rubbish, like in India. I couldn&#8217;t get over how friendly and pleasant everyone was (for no reason!) and there seemed to be a lot of pride with the people. Homes were ...

... We headed back to the guesthouse for another excellent curry (especially the dahl) before going to bed at 8pm in readiness for an action packed day tomorrow. 9th October After hiring bikes in Polonnaruwa I figured it'd be a good idea to do the same here. The ruins were much more spread out here so it was going to be a long days bike riding! Polonnaruwa had set a very high standard and ultimately Anuradhapura didn't match up. The ruins weren't in such a good state ...

EN: Anuradhapura was the very first capital of Sri Lanka and is over 2000 years old. Its ruins look a bit similar to the ones in Polonnaruwa, only the area is much bigger. Part of it is already uncovered, but there is still a big part underground. The work is stopped here due to lack of money (not enough tourism because of the war). Apart from the ruins we also saw Isurumuniya Vihara, the oldest Buddhist temple in Sri ...

... of the stone through the images is really pretty, but unfortunately you can't fit them in to one photograph because of the size. Sigiriya Sigiriya is probably one of the most well-known tourist attractions in Sri Lanka. It is one of the typical brochure shots and is really quite spectacular because it a 200m outcrop of rock (the inner plug of an ancient volvcano which is made of tougher rock than the outer part which long ...

... straddler. It's very sad, people are virtually begging us to buy their wares. But no matter how much we want to help there's very little that us as two independent travelers can do to help. There are only so many wood carvings/ sculptures we can buy and carry! In the last few days a suicide bomber killed a government minister and several others were wounded at the start of a marathon in Colombo. Tomorrow we were supposed to catching a train to ...

... Dagoba - one of the largest in the world. We took off our shoes and saw the 10m reclining Buddha thats inside then made our way walking around the outside of the dagoba, watching the workmen replace and set stones that surround it. These restoration works have been going on for the past 20 years, piece by piece its marked and its like a jigsaw - they are putting all the pieces back together. The dagoba ...

... in and had some free time so a quick dip in the pool was in order.. Later in the arvo we got some tuk tuks to drive us the 30 mins to Mihintale - on arrival they had to stop 1/2 way up the hill as they didn't have the steam to make it all the way up. Our first stop was to see the Kantaka Chetiya - a big dagoba (like a stupa). It was 12m tall (used to be 30) and about 130m in circumference. Its about 200-100 BC and you should walk clockwise around ...

... out over jungle canopy. Next stop on the cultural triangle north of Kandy (which is kind of like the Bermuda triangle but with classical music) was Dambulla and its Buddhist rock temples cut into living rock and a chance to shelter from the sharp showers that left the stone stairs steaming. Yesterday sadly the shower was less avoidable , though it would have been nice for the weather gods to have been kinder with the timing of their attentions as I was ...

... the goal of effecting a complete restoration of the ancient city. The programme continues to this day, and has assumed enormous national significance for the Buddhist Sinhalese, who see the reclaimation as a powerful symbol of national identity and resurgence. As with Polonnaruwa, there are far too many individual sights to detail so again I'll pick put a few highlights. At the spiritual and physical heart of Anuradhapura stands the Sri ...