Category Archives: _Asia_

More of Kandy …

Posted on by

Today was a free day and a welcome opportunity to sleep a slight bit longer. Most of us made it to downtown after (a late) breakfast; for me it was more sightseeing around the temple of the tooth, a walk around the lake – and the first real espresso since my transfer in Amsterdam.

We got together again in the evening for a Kandyan Dance Performance. The performance turned out fairly touristic; I am not so sure, if all that dancing was indeed Kandy or even Sri Lanka style – – – at least the part with balancing those revolving plates … I am sure, I have seen that before (maybe the acrobats in Beijing?). Anyhow – the show was entertaining enough 😉

After the show we made it to a Tamil restaurant for dinner – followed by a visit to a dodgy bar (the bar turned out completely fine … so nothing dodgy here).

 

Dambulla Vegetable Market

Posted on by

We made it to the hotel in Dambulla in the late afternoon. Most wanted a break after all that sightseeing and (even more so) after all the food.

We met up again in the evening for a visit to Dambulla’s wholesale vegetable market – to get a glimpse of Sri Lanka’s diversity, when it comes to fruit and vegetables.

As most of us were still pretty full from our late buffet lunch, many of the group joined in for a snackfood crawl in downtown Dambully. Priya here gave us an introduction to classic Sri Lankan snack foods – instead of dinner, we were essentially snacking  through, trying bits here and pieces there … good flavors and just the right amount of food.

Game Drive in Kaudulla National Park

Posted on by

This was a busy day – and it was not over yet.

After we had climbed down Sigiriya again, we made our way for a restaurant for a late lunch; after lunch we swapped our bus with 4WDs and continued for a game drive in Kaudulla National Park.

We soon discovered, what the park is famous for: the elephants. We saw hundreds of those, including many tuskers (i.e. elephants with tusks; not so easy to spot in Sri Lanka, as only about 5% of the male population have tusks here) – so very lucky. We were also lucky with the weather (as already for the whole day) – blue skies mingling with some very photogenic clouds – a perfect day for elephant watching.

The real fun part of the game drive – however – was the way back. With many of the roads in the park flooded, the way back turned into a 4WD mud fight – with loads of ups and downs beside the road and many of those downs straight into another pool of mud; driving obviously included loads of drifting (any direction) – – the experience overall felt a bit like a hectic roller coaster or log flume ride in an amusement park – not to mention, that is was great fun 😉

Aukana Buddha

Posted on by

Today we had a very busy schedule ahead of us. We kicked it off with a visit of the Aukana Buddha in the morning (actually another early one – helped with the tight schedule and also to – once more – beat the crowds).

So it was shoes off and temple clothing once again, before we made it to the Aukana Buddha. The statue itself dates back to the 5th century and the reign of king Dhatusena (though there are some sources, that put it to much later) – and is an amazing piece of craftsmanship with intricately carved details and features – the robe just looks real …

Mihintale

Posted on by

We were leaving the hotel early this morning (actually, we thought, it was early – as we had to learn later on, this morning indeed was a fairly average one) to beat the crowds at Mihintale.

Mihintale is a Buddhist pilgrimage site and links back to the introduction of Buddhism to Sri Lanka. Stairs lead up a hill to a number of religious monuments; en route one passes many abandoned structures and ruins – including the ruins of a monastery.

We were given a guided tour of the ruin site before making it up the last flight of stairs to the actual religious site – the more adventurous of us made it up Aradhana Gala (Meditation Rock), while the others covered the easier climb to the Buddha status. We met up again later on for a walk around the Mahaseya Dagoba.

Editorial note: don’t get confused by the word dagoba – it is not more than the Sinhalese word for a stupa; I will use the two words interchangeably.