Wednesday, Feb 12th, Dambulla, Sri Lanka

Greetings!

Yesterday, we flew from Trichy City, India to Columbo, Sri Lanka.  Our newest driver and guide met us at the airport, and drove us north for five hours to the Palm Village Hotel in Anuradhapura.  It was gorgeous, and I sometimes think this trip is a hopscotch from one top ten resort to another.  They happen to be located near the country's oldest and most magnificent ruins, and the accommodations are unreal.  We'll be here until Friday.

Anuradhapura is a major Buddhist Stupa center, once the capital of Sri Lanka for a thousand years (300BC to 700AD).   The sprawling complex contains a rich collection of archeological and architectural wonders, enormous stupas, ancient pools and crumbling temples.  It also is home to the oldest recorded tree in the world (a 2,300 year old Bodhi) taken from a root of the tree under which Buddha gained enlightenment in India.

We then went to Ruwanweli Maha Seya, guarded by a frieze of 344 elephants, it contains ashes of the Buddha.  When dedicated in 140BC, it was the tallest stupa in the world.

We had some good news at the stupa, following a scare this morning.  Yesterday at lunch, I left my shoulder wallet on the back of a chair at Kincha's Dine In (2 hrs west of here).  Through Facebook, we found the restaurant and phone number, and made arrangements for one of the tour company to rescue it to provide me with it later in the tour.

We visited Jetavanarama (3rd century AD_ and Abhayagiri (1st century BC), two huge fired brick stupas each containing more that 90 million bricks.  A British guidebook from the early 1900s calculated that this was enough bricks to make a 3-meter high wall stretching from London to Edinburgh.  It is still the largest fired brick structure in the world, and just behind the pyramids of Egypt as the largest of the old world structures.

In the 10th century, a Tanail king named Raja Raja conquered Sri Lanka and destroyed most of the structures, leaving columns and foundations circled with intricate granite carvings of dragons, elephants, bulls, and other images.

Lastly, we climbed over a hundred stairs to the base of a large white stupa called Ambasthale in Mihintale (a temple complex where Buddhism first took hold in Sri Lanka).

To see all of the photos taken in the last two days, click on Wednesday, Feb 12th, Dambulla, Sri Lanka.