We are staying at the Lake View Tourist Guest House which is in a quiet no through road a short walk from Main Street and the centre of town. This small complex has at least 10 rooms in two separate buildings alongside the owner’s house and our room is on the second floor up two flights of a spiral staircase with some rather narrow steps, which is fine until it comes to the virtiginous descendent which of necessity is painfully slow. The food is good, the family friendly and there is internet, so it fulfils all our basic requirements.
We hire bikes and set out on an orientation ride. We need to find somewhere to purchase a round ticket for the ‘Cultural Triangle’ which takes in all the ancient cities and sites that fall within the area between Anuradhapura, Pollonaruwa and Kandy. This ticket for foreign tourists costs $50 pounds and covers most, but not all the major sights, which would otherwise cost $25 each. So although expensive by Sri Lankan standards is something of a no-brainer if you plan to visit more than one sight. And according to Lonely Planet it doesn’t allow multiple entry so you are limited to a day per sight.
In Anuradhapura there are two main sights: the Sri Maha Bodhi, grown from a cutting brought from India by the sister of Mahinda who introduced Buddhism to Sri Lanka and is of sacred significance to the Sinhalese religion; and the Sacred City, a sprawling complex of enormous dagobas (stupas) and the ruins of monastic and royal buildings built during the 1000 years as capital from 380 BC to around 800 AD.
Our first stop is the Sri Maha Bodhi which is the centre of a collection of buildings and which is enormously popular with pilgrims who converge on this site for puja (offerings and prayers) particularly in April. At some 2000 years old, this is the oldest living Bodhi tree in the world and it is showing its age with many of the branches needing support from decorative props. The walls around this and the other bodhi trees that grow here are decked with prayer flags and offerings of jasmine, lotus and frangipanji flowers purchased from stallholders outside.
From here we cycle the large loop that takes in most of the sites in the sacred city, but it isn’t until we get to the Samhedi Buddha that we find a ticket office. The cost of two round tickets is 12,000 rupees – more than we have on us, so we will come back tomorrow to cover the sites we haven’t seen today and to pay for our ticket which will also cover us for entry into a number of other ancient monuments including Pollonaruwa and Sigirya.
The sacred city is very spread out and comprises a number of enormous dagobas some still plastered and whitewashed and others in various states of disrepair, denuded of plaster to expose the underlying brick work; and the ruins of a vast number of monastic and royal buildings. Most of the dagobas are still in use as sacred sites which means that to approach them requires the removal of hats and shoes. All are surrounded by stone platforms which in the heat of the sun are hot enough to fry an egg on and are painfully hot to our delicate western feet. Not so for the Sri Lankans who seem to have feet so hardened that they can walk on the hot stones without seemingly experiencing any discomfort, whilst we hop from one patch of shade to another trying to avoid looking completely ridiculous and failing badly. Unfortunately it limits our circumambulations of the dagobas and in the end we give up the struggle and have to admire them from afar. We shall bring socks next time.
There is the most almighty storm in the late afternoon which starts while we are in the supermarket. Thunder, lighning, winds and torrential rain make it impossible to make it back to the guest house and we are forced to take refuge in the coffe shop there until the rain abates. Half-an-hour later we don our rain capes and venture out. It is still lightning every few minutes and the torrent of water in the streets as well as the lack of street lighting make cycling impossible so we push the bikes back the last kilometer or so, our way lit only by frequent flashes of lightning,
Dinner is by candlelight and we are without power for the rest of the evening.