Sri Lanka part 3 - the cultural triangle

14 - 18 November

Arriving in Kandy, a bit of bargaining with a stubborn tuk-tuk driver, and it was off to the Kandy City Hostel with an Australian backpacker, Leigh, who'd been on the same train.

Sri Lanka's centre, roughly between Kandy, Anuradhapura and Polonnaruwa, is widely known as the Cultural Triangle. This area holds a number of locations of high cultural heritage and interest, and is noticeably more conservative than the rest of the country, especially regarding dress in temples and the sale of alcohol.

One of the primary sites is right in Kandy's centre - the Temple of the Tooth Relic, which purportedly holds a tooth of the Buddha and is therefore considered one of the most important Buddhist pilgrimage sites in the world. Leigh and I headed there the next morning to discover how important the spiritual connection is to Kandy's Buddhists (answer: very)...

Reflections outside the temple

My shorts weren't long enough at the Temple of the Tooth, so I hired a sarong
(Sri Lankan men often wear sarongs, and would be a top choice for many semi-formal type gatherings)

Buddhist flags inside

Locals walking past the opening leading to the Tooth Relic (in a golden shrine at the rear)

Lighting candles to the Buddha

After a bit of shopping, we took a walk up to Bahirawakanda Temple, perched on the top of a hill with a commanding view of the city, where there was a massive statue of the Buddha presiding.

Bahirawakanda Temple towering at 27 m high

The monks' washing line

Enjoying a refreshing coconut before the walk back down

That afternoon, Leigh and I also visited the Tea Museum, located just out of the city within the tea plantations. It was a bit of an odd place, built inside an old tea factory, but had some good documentation on the development of tea as a commodity, it's pioneers, and some old tea processing machines.

The next morning I got up early to head to Dambulla, for a cricket ODI between New Zealand's Black Caps and Sri Lanka. A local got talking to me on the bus* and we shared a tuk-tuk to the stadium, where we arrived just as it started a typical Sri Lankan tropical downpour.

* One of the things that was very noticeable in Sri Lanka was their desire to strike up a conversation, find out where you were from, and practice their English. There were often two things that they mentioned when I said I was from New Zealand - the All Blacks, and Anchor milk. The fact that the New Zealand cricket team was touring Sri Lanka was almost unknown to most, which surprised me somewhat considering cricket is their national sport!!

The covers being removed as the rain stopped - about 200 guys of manpower!

I quite enjoyed the atmosphere of a Sri Lankan cricket match. The locals were right into the game, and very fond of their star Lasith Malinga. Cheering when New Zealand took a wicket, the silence around me was almost deafening - but when Sri Lanka hit a boundary, the wall of sound of cheering from the locals would hit...

I happened to find three other New Zealand backpackers there - Alice (who I'd seen on the train to Galle) and two of her friends - turns out Sri Lanka is a pretty small place! Despite a good bowling performance, the batting was dreadful and New Zealand eventually lost by 36 runs when it got too dark to keep playing.

A boy cheering on his team

Some of the locals wanted a photo with the crazy Kiwi

I stayed that night in nearby Sigiriya, a small town nestled against the ancient historical site of the same name.

Breakfast - another delicious dhal curry

Having met up with Leigh again, we headed to the ancient city early in the morning to avoid the heat. Centred around a 200 m high pillar of rock, the city was built in the fifth century by a local king as his capital.

By one of the moats around the city...
"Refrain from bathing, crocodiles go about"

The towering pillar of rock at Sigiriya

Sigiriya translates roughly as "Lion's Rock". The structure built on the side of the rock - in the fifth century - included two massive lion's paws carved into the rock at it's base. This is a view down onto those paws from the staircase above.

View down to the ancient city complex from atop Sigiriya

View from the summit

City constructions at the summit

A cave within the side of the rock is home to some beautifully painted frescoes

Aside from it's importance as a ancient city, and the wonderfully-preserved frescoes, a wall covered in graffiti also serves as probably the single most important source of information about the development of the Sinhalese language.

On my way back to Kandy that evening, I also visited the famous Rock Temple (also known as Cave Temple), where over 150 Buddha statues are located inside caves in the hillside. Nearby is also a towering Golden Temple.

Reclining Buddha in the caves

A row of Buddha figures

The Golden Temple

After a long day I finally arrived back in Kandy, and the next morning it was back to Colombo. I was very reluctant to leave this wonderful country - it really is a fascinating place I would love to go back to - but managed to sign off with a typical spicy-as-heck dhal curry with Ashan before winging my way to Bangkok.

There were only two countries to go on my world trip!