Back to the Sacred City taking a slightly different route this time in order to see the remaining sites.
Cycling through this gorgeous countryside overloaded with lush vegetation, palms and trees with enormous canopies is just as enjoyable as the ruins and dagobas. This area is not simply an historical site either; the bungalows of local Sri Lankans nestle in the jungle vegetation and several of the dagoabas remain holy places of pilgrimage for many. In fact the vast majority of visitors to the Sacred City are Sri Lankans with only a small proportion of westerners, mostly in tour groups.
The grounds in the immediate vicinity of the temples have been cleared and are now mostly shady park land which appears to be maintained by the army. There are numerous details of soldiers cutting the grass with bill hooks and clearing dead wood. There is clearly such a surfeit of, presumeably, conscripted soldiers that they can be spared from their military duties to act as gardeners.
By the end of the two days we have covered most of this extensive city including the The BraZen Palace,so called because it was once thought to have a bronze roof, now all that remains are are a few of the 1600 stone columns; the beautiful cloud white Ruvanvelisaya Dagoba with its frieze of elephants a few of which date back to 140BC; the Thurparama Dagoba the oldest in Sri Lanka dating from the 3rd century) BC, which unusually is surrounded by four concentric circles of stone pillars which probably once supported a conical roof; The huge Abhayagiri Dagoba (1st or 2nd century BC; the Jetavanarama Dagoba, the third tallest monument in the world after the Egyptian pyraminds which is is currently being restored and is completely encased in wooden scaffolding – an amazing sight in itself. As well as Mahasena’s Palace of which little remains except for a glorious carved moonstone; the ruins of the Royal Palace and Kuttam Pokuna, two incredibly preserved stone ponds with a clever filtration system.
Foolishly we forgot to bring socks again, and that has prevented us from being able to get onto the terraces around the dagobas for an up close look around. I also forgot to sun cream my feet and have spend half the day with my feet in plastic bags to minimise the sunburn.
This time round we are stopped by a ticket inspector at a ticket booth and finally are able to buy our Cultural Triangle round ticket for $30 each will allow us access to this and a number of other sites between here and Kandy. There seems to be only two or three ticket boothes in the whole of this enormouse site and none are particularly well signed, but we knew that eventually we would get to pay, either here or at one of the other sites on our tour.
About two thirds of the way round the ancient city cycling seems to be getting significantly harder even down hill which I put down to sheer exhaustion, but it turns out I have a flat tyre. We are still several kilometers from the guest house and I have visions of having to push the bike all the way back. But as luck would have it we amazingly come across a man repairing bicycles in a small hut on the roadside and he kindly cleans my valve and pumps up the tyre and we are able to continue on our way.
By the end of two days cycling in the sweltering heat we are exhausted and crash out after dinner. There is stil is no electricity and there’s been another torrential downpour accompanied by a dramatic electrical storm lasting a couple of hours.