Thursday. Up at 7:00. Cup of Ceylon black tea with milk, no sugar. Excellent day. The rain is gone. There is just enough cloud to temper the sun, still it will be hot.
8:30. In the van. On the road to Polonnaruwa, a UNESCO World Heritage Site. Approximately 50 kilometers northeast of our Sigiriya base. The Sri Lankan names are long. They look complicated, but if you look closely, they are made up of two letter bits, which are a consonant followed by a vowel. Po lon na ru wa. Si gi ri ya.
As we drive, I am reading a bit about Sri Lanka's history. Most recently, starting around 1500, they were occupied/ruled by three countries in succession. Portugal, the Netherlands, and Great Britain; for 150 years each. Sri Lanka declared independence in 1948. The population categories, in a very general sense, are the Sinhalese (Buddhist), the Tamils (Islamic), and the Moors (Hindu). The majority are Sinhalese. The Moors, the minority and the Tamils in between. Sinhalese recorded history begins around 2300 years ago with the arrival of Vijaya, a prince from North India.
Writing, now, in real time ... We have been on the road, in the van, for an hour. The roadsides continue to be full of colorful unusual sights. The driver points out a "lizard" on a canal bank. We stop. Get out. Walk closer. On the upper bank is a "lizard" 5 feet long, but climbing out of the water is his big brother, 8 feet long nose to tail. A man has a stick. A piece of fish is on the end. (He has done this before). He dangles the fish to tease "big lizard" out of the water, up the bank and to the road. He makes it rear up erect. An impressive white belly under slate gray top. Seriously long tongue. Finally, "big lizard" gets the fish, his treat. The "lizard" wrangler called it a "water monitor". I am relieved. I thought it was a komodo dragon. Komodos eat humans. The wrangler was pleased with a tip of 100 rupees, (70 cents).
We are driving along the border of the Polonnaruwa ruins's border. I will call it a campus of ruins. The campus was once a city. It occupies dozens, if not hundreds, of acres. There is a bit of a fence with a strand of barbed wire. Inside the fence, the foliage is dense. The green sprouts from the red earth. We see glimpses of ruins. By ruins I mean footprints of long gone buildings. Occasionally, some or much of a building survives. On the other side of the street cows lounge. They may belong to someone, but they roam freely. They are brown or white or black, with horns and without horns. They seem too svelte for eating, unlike our edible American edible cows, fattened up like sumo wrestlers. Over the lake is a vast black swirl of birds.
Now, at the museum for ruins, a posted map shows the vast sprawl we have arrived to. More than can be seen in one day.
One hour later ... We walked quickly through the museum. They have models of how the entire city might have appeared in 1100. The best room, at least my favorite, held original bronze statues of Shiva, Ganesh, etc. Three to four feet tall. Beautiful. Finely wrought. Exquisitely detailed. 900 year old masterpieces in outstanding condition.
The first stop on our ruins walk ... A statue of a man. 9 feet tall. Carved into soft blond stone. A palm leaf straddles his two hands. He wears a sarong-like garment. In front, a belt, stone carved, is tied into a curled bow. He is 900 years old. An open sided shed roof protects him. A few feet away, there is a dome of red brick. It's top is gone. The upward curved walls create a wonderful acoustic. The dome is the centerpiece of a small village surrounded by smaller domes, all gone. The whole is canopied by flowering trees. The air is filled with wafting butterflies and dragonflies. (I have read, people come here for dragonfly safaris). Nearby, beneath a leafy tree and seated on a stone wall, an older man in a sarong sits carving Buddha images into a wooden cane.
Second stop ... We walk through more ruins. There are so many ruins, we could spend the entire day and not see it all. We strive to be more selective, one more site, that will be enough. Onward, past the monkeys. A lot of monkeys. A quick internet check tells me the Polonnaruwa monkeys, (toque macaques), are unique, endangered and spelled like this, in Sinhalese, (the main Sri Lankan language), රිළවා.
Third stop ... Awe inspiring. Truly magnificent. A two hundred foot long boulder was, 900 years ago, carved, (think Mount Rushmore), into Buddha in three positions: sitting, standing and reclining. The stone has striations of grey and black. The carving is masterful, elegant, graceful. Thinking nothing on this campus can surpass this, we load into the van to leave. The driver suggests one more stop. We say yes, but only one more.
Fourth and final stop ... It would have been wrong to miss this one, the Thiwanka Pilimage. Superficially, it looks like a melting red brick building. The red brick was once covered in concrete, which was carved into lions, cherubs and miscellaneous gods. Enough of the detail remains to get the picture. Inside, there are frescoes. I overhear a guide, in spanish, speaking of extra terrestrials and kama sutra. The star of the show is a tall shapely Buddha without a head. Any site with a Buddha statue is sacred and requires shoes off and no photos. I am enjoying the barefoot opportunities.
1:00, en route home ... We stop at Perera and Sons, P&S, for meat pies (cuisine from British colonial days?). We will have them at the aperitif hour with what Bordeaux remains from last night.
On the road home, we encounter an elephant. On the roadside. Peaceful. A thick crust of dirt on it's back. Munching leaves. It has excellent concentration. Entirely undistracted by the relentless whosh of motor traffic.
Arriving back at the lodge, 2:00 PM ... Before we left this morning, the kitchen offered, and we are accepting, to have our breakfast late.
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