Deer Park Hotel Polonnaruwa

... area and mosquito net and ensuite. It wasn;t the nicest place we stayed but was fine as was the food.

we went on an elephant safari - 4000rs for teh jeep and 5245rs for 2 people entry into the park at Minneya. Although we had seen lots of elephants in Africa we thought it would be interesting to see the gathering of 150+ elephants which flock to the area in times of drought... as always we were lied to and it was another month until that happens (aug). We ended up ...

... journey to a guesthouse recommended by a rickshaw driver (5kms away!!), I eventually found some reasonable digs in good proximity to the sights and bus station. I found a good local café nearby and after more snacks and tea, slept like a baby!

The following morning I took the bus to Sigiriya. It’s not the easiest of places to get to from Pollunaruwa, but there are direct buses from Dambulla. With Dambulla being the next place I wanted to visit, it ...

We went to Pollonaruwa as a day trip from Sigirya. It's one of Sri Lanka's ancient cities and a world heritage site. The ruins stretch over a huge area and we had to take the car around to see them all!

We took a guide for the morning and he showed us firstly around the museum which had some interesting miniature reconstructions of what the ruins would have looked like before ...

... the famous chariots were all locked up. The inside was pretty much a typical temple. There were the usual offerings of fruit and porridge that townspeople come and drop off for the monks. We had arrived in time to see a monk chant a bit with some of the locals as they went around to some of the prayers spots inside the temple. There was one really cool alter that was a replica of the planets. The main draw, though, are the huge chariots that have all kinds ...

... and like a Scottish Heavy) and sat about chatting in the bar. Now......the restaurant and bar were open sided - and Max got attacked by the mossies (by the end of Na Mala Max was bitten over 80 times) - and bats fly overhead (and dive bomb the pool!). We headed to bed. Chris and I set up the mossie nets over our twin beds and lay down to read tomorrows itinerary.....while she read I lay on my pillow listening to her Franglish......a cockroach ran from under my ...

... and they didn't take very long I decided not to stay the night there. So, on to Sigiriya, another of the ancient cities of Sri Lanka. Here there is another rock to climb, however, much bigger. Some people believe that the ruins on top of the rock were a palace, some believe a fortress, and others believe they were residences. This climb takes about an hour to an hour and a half to climb. Along the way are ...

... thought we would need far more than 2 hours to see the ruins. We decided that we would get up early the next morning and get to the site when it opened, if we were finished within a few hours then we'd catch a bus to the next town, if not we'd stay another night. So with nothing else to do we ended up chilling on the rocks down by the lake. It was an incredibly tranquil spot and in any other country would be rammed with lakeside bars ...

... pekle. Nejhur na tom byli lhari, alkoholici a prostitutky. Dalsi zastavka byla v zahrade bylin a koreni a mistni pruvodce byl neskutecne nudnej, takze jsme byli radi, kdyz jsme mohli konecne vypadnout, a vyrazili jsme smer Dambulla (cestou jsme jeste stihli jednu rychlovku v Nalanda Gedige). Dambulsky skalni chram byl postaven v 10.-12. stoleti a je vpodstate take vyhlouben do skaly a tvori ho nekolik jeskyn a pristavku. Stoji na desne vysokem kopci ...

It wasn't actually the rain, well, not entirely, which sent us scurrying back down hill after one night in Nuwera Eliya, it wasn't even a bad experience with the two hotels we stayed in that night. The town is just boring. To make sure we left on a note of excitement I managed a bad start to the day. We headed for the bus station to confirm the time of the next bus and after a long discussion and much pointing at a map in Sinhala we popped off ...

Up early again at 7am for breakfast before we made our way To Polonnaruwa, a place that used to be the capital. Our van man was the slower driver - at one stage we got passed by a truck doing 30km/hr... It was about a 4hr drive and we took in the scenery. At one stage we stopped as there were some trained elephants bathing in the local river - occasionally you would see its snout appear from below the water for a breathe.. The village people use the ...