We stayed overnight at The Summer Village, which isn’t a village at all, but a small countryside guest house, just outside Polonnaruwa. It proves to be a pleasant enough stopover and it has internet which, as we are beginning to discover, is something of a rarity for guest houses in Sri Lanka. We thought we had negotiated a good rate for the room when we arrived last night, but we have been caught out by the service and internet charges which have bumped the bill back up. The breakfast is good though, served on the covered terrace just outside our room.
Polonnaruwa is one of Sri Lanka’s ancient cities and one of the nine former capitals. There are extensive ruins, both monastic and royal, spread across four sites: the Royal Palace group, the Quadrangle and the Northern and Southern groups. There is also an excellent small archaeological museum which contains artifacts and stone carvings that have been romoved from the site during restoration. Of particular interest are the scale model reconstructions of some of the main buildings giving an useful insight into what they may have originally looked like.
The first stop is the Southern Group to see Potgul Vihara and a fine 4m high rock carving of King Parakramabahu (1153 – 1186) – or possibly Sage Palasti – holding a manuscript or is it a yoke? – there seems to be some uncertainty about who this might be and what he is holding. And beautiful and life-like as it is, the presence of a corrugated tin canopy goes some way to compromise its artistic integrity. Potgul Vihara is a a library dagoba, unusual in that it is a hollow structure (most dagobas are almost entirely solid) with four smaller solid dagobas arranged around the central dome to form a rectangle.
At the Royal Palace Group we meet up with a guide, this time arranged by Mustalif, although, as it turns out, we could have easily managed without him as the site, unlike Anuradhapura, is well signed.
Polonnaruwa is as spread out as Anuradhapura and some form of transport is definitely required to get between the groups of ruins. It is more varied than Anaradhapura in terms of the types of buildings and also more intact.
Notable buildings in the Royal Palace group are the Royal Palace itself, a massive structure that once comprised seven floors, the audience hall with its freize of elephants and carved, Chinese-influenced lions at the top of the stairs, and the bathing pool (Kumara Pokuna) which was fed by two stone crocodiles and flowed out into the rice paddies beyond. All date from the reign of KIng Parakramabahu I.
The Quadrangle group is a compact group comprising the vatadage with four entrances onto its surrounding terrace with fine guardstones and moonstones; the Thuparama Gedige – a hollow Buddhist temple, and unlike many in the ancient cities was built entirely of stone and has its roof intact. It is strongly influenced by Hinduism and contains a number of Buddha statues; the Gal Pota, a colossal stone book weighing 25 tonnes, which was dragged from Mihintale 100km away; the Hatadage tooth relic temple which was said to have been built in 60 days; the Latha-Mandapaya – a small dagoba encircled by stone pillars shaped like lotus stalks and topped with unopened buds; the Satmahal Prasada – an Angkor Wat-styple pyramid consisting of six diminishing storeys; and the Atadage.
Close to the Quadrangle are two Hindu temples the Shiva Devale No 1 and No 2. The former has been recontructed and is notable for the precision of the stone work. Also in this area is Pabula Vihara, a typical dagoba from the period of Parakramabahu, probably used as a library and containing a statue of Buddha.
The highlight of Polonnaruwa though is the Gal Vihara, a group of four superb Buddha images carved from a single long slab of granite which are probably the most famous group of Buddha images in Sri Lanka. The standing Buddha is 7m tall, the reclining image entering parinirvana is 14m long. The other two images are both of seated Buddhas, one in a niche in rock face.
It had been our intention to go onto to climb the rock at Sigirya in the afternoon, but after lunch there is a downpour and we are slightly relieved to have to postpone Sigirya until tomorrow; I don’t think we could have found the energy for the climb after this mornings activity!
So by 4pm we are at our hotel just outside Sigirya taking it easy. Our room faces onto a terrace with views of the lush gardens. Very pleasant.
Mustalif is trying to wriggle out of taking us all the way to Kandy as we had arranged. He is trying to suggest that we had originally agreed to go only as far as Dambulla, which is definitely not the case. But once again we are caught out, because we didn’t write down what we had agreed with him. The actual arrangement was that he would take us as far as Kandy unless we decided to stop over in Dambulla, in which case we would make our own way to Kandy and he would return to Anaradhapura. This has become an issue now only because the rain has put us half a day behind schedule and means he will not be able to get back to Kandy tomorrow. In a way, we can see where he is coming from, but instead of explaining the real reason, he is trying to make out that this was the plan all along. Eventually, he offers to pay for the bus from Dambullah to Kandy. We decide to sleep on it and let him sweat a little.