Galway Miridiya Lodge Anuradhapura

... s the no hats/no shoes routine & clearly buddhists have hard feet. The other challenge is to find a 'soft' bed - Liz is the champion of trying various beds in various guest houses before we stop - we have managed 2 out of the last 3 OK by finding the room with the 'new' mattress. We have bought an extra thick sheet though.
The other highlights have been the painted rock caves with the Buddha images - Dambulla in particular.
The novelty was the Japanese funded Golden ...

... crossing the road in front of me. Snake - here is an animal I’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!

I am now back the hotel and the rain as started as usual every evening :-( but it’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’t see piles of rubbish, like in India. I couldn’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 ...

... to find and I managed to find a USB SD Card ready (which I later discovered didn't work!) as I had forgotten a cable at home. With little light left in the day we decided to pay a visit to the Bodhi Tree Shrine in the centre of town. A huge tree grown from a cutting from Bodhgaya, India and of huge spiritual value to the Sinhalese. I was expecting more to be honest but it was a good diversion for about an hour and we were even given fruit by the army personnel manning the gun ...

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 ...

... to buy alcohol, although some of the touristy guesthouses and hotels will discretely sell you a beer if there aren't many SL's around. The Ancient Cities The Ancient Cities are a bit of a trek from Tangalle so really we needed a long weekend to do them justice. They are North of the hill country in one of the driest parts of the country and were the original centre of Sri Lankan civilisation. This area is often known as ...

... d write how i feel rather than where and what we have been doing! Apart from being scorching hot and feeling like a beast (I've ate too much again) I'm feeling quite sad! Sri Lanka is a beautiful country with beautiful very friendly, helpful, kind and generous people, yes there is the occasional con-artist among them (and Helen and i always manage to find them) but 99% of them are lovely. However as the Buddhist/ Hindu New Year (13th) dawns near ...

... and buses.! After a successful negotiation we arrived at the ruins and you could tell immediately how massive the city once was... We made a quick stop at the museum to see what the archaeological digs have found around the area the we made our way out to see the ruins... We saw the wells where they kept their water supplies, we saw the ruins of the monks of Ratnaprasada and then we hit the mother-load - the giant ...

... version straight out of the coconut & i pretty much gagged... The coconut man showed us how he climbed the coconut tree, (not roped in) hacked away at the coconut flowers, collected the toddy and moved to the next tree - all about 30m above ground and by using the coconut palm leaves and ropes that had been tied from one tree to another for support. Amazing hard work and they do this morning afternoon and night. After the man came back ...

... to get to the Pinnawala Elephant sanctuary which explains my unacceptably low nelliephant quotient of two live and one stuffed (v.poor must try harder!)as I plumped instead for the nearly Riverside Elephant Park which was sans pachyderms -- it was however set next to the commonwealth war grave cemetery overlooking a river gorge -- a beautiful place to be laid to reast but not at the age of 18 or so....I did get to see the Temple of the Tooth where one of ...