Cultural Triangle

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I've had such a hectic weekend and current week that I feel like I don't know where to start. Last weekend 5 of us decided to travel round whats known as Sri Lanka's cultural triangle and includes some of the main things to see in Sri Lanka.

On Friday afternoon we traveled up to the ancient city Anuradhapura which took around 6 hours and we stayed in a cute guest house with a lovely Sri Lankan family. Early on Saturday morning we hired bikes to cycle around the ancient city. We saw lots of temples and ruins and statues. My favourite thing we saw was the Bodhi tree. The bodhi tree was a tree in India where Buddha attained enlightenment. The tree in Sri Lanka is an off cut of the original tree and the original tree was later destroyed. There was hundreds of pilgrims all dressed in white taking flowers and gifts to the tree and it was really interesting to be there.

On Saturday afternoon we went on safari in Minneriya national park which was amazing!! (Not actually part of the cultural triangle.) After around 15 minutes of driving I was really excited when the driver stopped the jeep and was extremely disappointed when he pointed out a deer. We can see them in Richmond park! Luckily it got much better and we saw lots of interesting birds but more importantly loads of elephants!! It was really amazing to be around a meter away from about 30 elephants.

On Saturday evening we traveled to Sigiriya and on Sunday morning we got up at 6am to climb Sigiriya rock. It was really hot but getting to the top felt great and the views were amazing! In the afternoon we went to Dambulla cave temples which is where a king that was exiled from Anuradhapura went into hiding. There were 5 caves all ornately decorated and full of Buddha statues. It was a climb up to the caves and by this point we were all feeling tired but it was totally worth it.

Lots of people keep asking me how the work is going. Its tiring but really good and unfortunately I can't talk about it in detail on here. I was quite surprised when a group of children I was working with knew all the words to ging gang goolie and I had to draw on my previous scouty knowledge to sing along with them! This afternoon I am teaching the third person singular and yes I did have to google that to work out what I am actually teaching!

I have to go now as I am buying a sari for a sari party we're going to tomorrow! Feel free to send me facebook messages to keep in touch, I miss you all!

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