It is very rare for bachelor boys like us to start early in a day; Especially after the tiresome day like that. But I believe all of us knew that we were lagging and had a lot of miles to cover today. So we started early from Bevary Holiday Home and moved towards Polonnaruwa which was the same route we covered yesterday from Dambulla to Anuradhapura.
We stopped at a small town to have breakfast. It was run by a tamil muslim and when I told him that I am from Coimbatore, he told many people in that town had ancestral here. But unfortunately, I forgot the town's name and the sweet breakfast dish (kind of like poli) I had there.
When we reached Polonnaruwa it must have been around noon. Based on yesterday's experience and my strong argument that we need a guide, we decided to visit the museum first. The guide whose name I forgot now(The meaning of his name was 'Blue Stone'), showed us around the museum first. After that, we paid a visit to the souvenir shop, had some drinks, watched the monkeys bathing in a pond and then started towards the ruins.
Just like the previous major cities we visited in the past days, Polonnaruwa was also acted as capital in the past. The second most ancient of Sri Lanka's kingdoms, Polonnaruwa was first declared the capital city by King Vijayabahu I, who defeated Chola invaders in 1070 to reunite the country once more under a local leader.
The three important rulers of Polonnaruwa are:
Vijayabahu I
Parakramabahu I
Nissankamalla I
Even though Vijayabahu created this city, it reached its golden period during Parakramabahu's time. He even created a man-made lake called 'Parakrama Samudra'. The museum is situated near this lake.
The important places to see here are the palace ruins, tooth temples and the Gal Vihara.
Whenever a new king takes the throne, he will build a new temple to place the tooth relic of Buddha. So in this place, you can see three tooth relic temple ruins.
The Gal Vihara has four rock relief statues of the Buddha, which have been carved into the face of a large granite rock. The images consist of a large seated figure, another smaller seated figure inside an artificial cavern, a standing figure and a reclining figure.
In the reclining figure, the left foot was slightly withdrawn to indicate that Buddha was attained parinirvana(passed away) and not just sleeping.
Note: In most of the archaeological sites in India, only security will be there. If you do any monkey business there, all that they do is just blow their whistle as louder as possible. But it's not the same case in Sri Lanka. Here almost all the places have army personnel and if you do monkey businesses like climbing on walls, placing your head on headless statues, placing your hand on the shoulder of sculptures and posing, etc., it might land you in trouble. Even though Buddhist people had to be the most peace loving people, they get easily offended. One local expressed his displeasure(angrily) when one of my friends worn his veshti above his knee level in Dambulla, and another one almost got arrested in Polonnaruwa when a local complained to a security about the way he's posing with the sculptures.
Even though he got 'released' with just a warning, it shook us a little. After Polonnaruwa, we started moving towards to the East Coast of Sri Lanka. Our first destination was Batticaloa aka Mattakalappu. The beach had no tourists and only the locals who reside near the sea were there. My friends had a good swim, while I sat on the sand and did the guarding even though there wasn't any need for it. (I am not the kind of person who enjoys bathing in sea or waterfalls.)
After Batticaloa, we followed the East Coast Road and moved towards Arugam Bay. The boys had plans to bath there also but when we reached it was already dark. So only a few went into the sea just for a ceremonial dip and we started our search for a hotel to eat.
Arugam Bay have many options to dine and stay but most of the places are costly. Finally, we found a hotel maintained by a Tamil Muslim family. As the non-vegetarians in the group, Sathya, Yogesha and me wanted to try the fish. Sathya ordered a fish curry and to his disappointment, it wasn't hot. Yogesha was very eager to try the 'Grilled fish' but it also didn't satisfy us. But somehow our vegetarian friends found more tasty items and enjoyed it more than us. Finally, it was time to pay the bill and the younger brother who served us calculated and give the bill around 4600 LKR. But before we pay, the older brother took the bill and did a recalculation. I thought he was going to give us some discount. But he added the items again and changed the amount to 5500 LKR. Seeing my face when I counted the notes in my hand, the younger brother said 5000 LKR is enough. While Yogesha and I were settling the bill, our other friends were having a conversation with the brother's father about how their hotel was totally destroyed during Tsunami and how we got help from foreigners who were his customers in the past to rebuild it.
Initially, our plan was to go to Galle fort after seeing Anuradhapura. But, like how I insisted on not skipping Anuradhapura, Sathya insisted that we should go to Kataragama. So we decided to resume our ride to Kataragama even though it would be past midnight when we reach there. We parted from East Coast and travelled inside the land. The roads were almost deserted and we couldn't see any vehicles except one or two auto rickshaws.
After some time, our driver stopped in a small shop and bought some bananas. He said, there's a male elephant with huge tusks roam around these roads in the night and it won't leave the vehicles to move unless they offer something to eat. I got both excited and scared after hearing this and remained awake till we reach Kataragama around 2.30 in the early morning to see him. Fortunately or unfortunately we didn't come across this elephant.
When we finally found a room in Kataragama to stay, it was almost three in the morning. So when we found out that the large window facing towards the corridor had no closings, we just kept both the door and window open and sank into our beds.
Just before drifting into sleep, Anand was enquiring about the Kataragma temple to our driver. When he asked about the idol in the temple, our driver casually said 'there is no idol in the temple. we just simply worship before the curtain', he was totally shocked. He gave me a look like 'then why the hell did we come all the way here ?!' and it was the last thing I remember about the day.
We stopped at a small town to have breakfast. It was run by a tamil muslim and when I told him that I am from Coimbatore, he told many people in that town had ancestral here. But unfortunately, I forgot the town's name and the sweet breakfast dish (kind of like poli) I had there.
Polonnaruwa
When we reached Polonnaruwa it must have been around noon. Based on yesterday's experience and my strong argument that we need a guide, we decided to visit the museum first. The guide whose name I forgot now(The meaning of his name was 'Blue Stone'), showed us around the museum first. After that, we paid a visit to the souvenir shop, had some drinks, watched the monkeys bathing in a pond and then started towards the ruins.
Just like the previous major cities we visited in the past days, Polonnaruwa was also acted as capital in the past. The second most ancient of Sri Lanka's kingdoms, Polonnaruwa was first declared the capital city by King Vijayabahu I, who defeated Chola invaders in 1070 to reunite the country once more under a local leader.
The three important rulers of Polonnaruwa are:
Vijayabahu I
Parakramabahu I
Nissankamalla I
Even though Vijayabahu created this city, it reached its golden period during Parakramabahu's time. He even created a man-made lake called 'Parakrama Samudra'. The museum is situated near this lake.
 |
| Vijayabahu Palace |
The important places to see here are the palace ruins, tooth temples and the Gal Vihara.
Whenever a new king takes the throne, he will build a new temple to place the tooth relic of Buddha. So in this place, you can see three tooth relic temple ruins.
 |
| Tooth Relic Temple |
The Gal Vihara has four rock relief statues of the Buddha, which have been carved into the face of a large granite rock. The images consist of a large seated figure, another smaller seated figure inside an artificial cavern, a standing figure and a reclining figure.
 |
| Gal Vihara |
In the reclining figure, the left foot was slightly withdrawn to indicate that Buddha was attained parinirvana(passed away) and not just sleeping.
Note: In most of the archaeological sites in India, only security will be there. If you do any monkey business there, all that they do is just blow their whistle as louder as possible. But it's not the same case in Sri Lanka. Here almost all the places have army personnel and if you do monkey businesses like climbing on walls, placing your head on headless statues, placing your hand on the shoulder of sculptures and posing, etc., it might land you in trouble. Even though Buddhist people had to be the most peace loving people, they get easily offended. One local expressed his displeasure(angrily) when one of my friends worn his veshti above his knee level in Dambulla, and another one almost got arrested in Polonnaruwa when a local complained to a security about the way he's posing with the sculptures.
Even though he got 'released' with just a warning, it shook us a little. After Polonnaruwa, we started moving towards to the East Coast of Sri Lanka. Our first destination was Batticaloa aka Mattakalappu. The beach had no tourists and only the locals who reside near the sea were there. My friends had a good swim, while I sat on the sand and did the guarding even though there wasn't any need for it. (I am not the kind of person who enjoys bathing in sea or waterfalls.)
After Batticaloa, we followed the East Coast Road and moved towards Arugam Bay. The boys had plans to bath there also but when we reached it was already dark. So only a few went into the sea just for a ceremonial dip and we started our search for a hotel to eat.
 |
| Arugam Bay |
Arugam Bay have many options to dine and stay but most of the places are costly. Finally, we found a hotel maintained by a Tamil Muslim family. As the non-vegetarians in the group, Sathya, Yogesha and me wanted to try the fish. Sathya ordered a fish curry and to his disappointment, it wasn't hot. Yogesha was very eager to try the 'Grilled fish' but it also didn't satisfy us. But somehow our vegetarian friends found more tasty items and enjoyed it more than us. Finally, it was time to pay the bill and the younger brother who served us calculated and give the bill around 4600 LKR. But before we pay, the older brother took the bill and did a recalculation. I thought he was going to give us some discount. But he added the items again and changed the amount to 5500 LKR. Seeing my face when I counted the notes in my hand, the younger brother said 5000 LKR is enough. While Yogesha and I were settling the bill, our other friends were having a conversation with the brother's father about how their hotel was totally destroyed during Tsunami and how we got help from foreigners who were his customers in the past to rebuild it.
Initially, our plan was to go to Galle fort after seeing Anuradhapura. But, like how I insisted on not skipping Anuradhapura, Sathya insisted that we should go to Kataragama. So we decided to resume our ride to Kataragama even though it would be past midnight when we reach there. We parted from East Coast and travelled inside the land. The roads were almost deserted and we couldn't see any vehicles except one or two auto rickshaws.
After some time, our driver stopped in a small shop and bought some bananas. He said, there's a male elephant with huge tusks roam around these roads in the night and it won't leave the vehicles to move unless they offer something to eat. I got both excited and scared after hearing this and remained awake till we reach Kataragama around 2.30 in the early morning to see him. Fortunately or unfortunately we didn't come across this elephant.
When we finally found a room in Kataragama to stay, it was almost three in the morning. So when we found out that the large window facing towards the corridor had no closings, we just kept both the door and window open and sank into our beds.
Just before drifting into sleep, Anand was enquiring about the Kataragma temple to our driver. When he asked about the idol in the temple, our driver casually said 'there is no idol in the temple. we just simply worship before the curtain', he was totally shocked. He gave me a look like 'then why the hell did we come all the way here ?!' and it was the last thing I remember about the day.
