Blogs from Anuradhapura, North Central Province, Sri Lanka, Asia
Cultural Triangle, Sri Lanka - 11 to 14 April 2012
Published: April 26th 2012Asia » Sri Lanka » North Central Province » Anuradhapura
April 23rd 2012
We arrived at Dambulla where we saw a huge Giant Golden Buddha, recent rains had uprooted a large tree so we had to detour down a side road to visit the site. Although Dambulla is famous for its five cave Temples our guide, Jaywa said he would take us to a less visited similar site called Aluvihare Cave Temples near our hotel. This hotel was much more luxurious than the last and we had a little bungalow to ourselves set in a delightful garden full of birds with wild peacocks in the field nearby - it was good to see these magnificent birds in their natural environment. The hotel also had a lovely pool and we spent some time enjoying the surroundings and chilling........ Not too much rest though as in the afternoon we set off ... read more
Sri Lanka! Anuradhapura
Published: October 7th 2011Asia » Sri Lanka » North Central Province » Anuradhapura
September 26th 2011
After spending a day recovering in Mount Lavinia, just south of Colombo, we ventured back into town to catch a train to Galle. Whatever train schedule I had looked up was wrong, and we decided to take a train to Anuradapura instead. It was the most rickety train I have ever been on, but it gave us a sense of people's agriculturally-focused lives outside the city. Most farms appear to be small and family-owned, and there are a lot of different crops (at least in this area). Unlike in most developing countries, Sri Lanka's populations have not flocked to the city; only 25% of the population lives in major urban centres. We arrived in Anuradapura at 9pm or so, and managed to find a decent hotel a little beyond our price range, but haggled them down ... read more
July 14th 2011
Monday started off as all the other Mondays with tank cleaning and general other duties. After we had cleaned most of the tanks we decided to watch the walkers going by as they were walking to Jaffna in the north to raise money for a new children’s cancer ward. We then decided to go for our usual after tank cleaning paddle/swim. Stan got into the water even though he couldn’t swim and a large wave knocked his glasses off so he couldn’t see either! I decided to swim back to see if his glasses had washed up on the shore, the current was very strong swimming back and took a lot of effort to swim against it as I got back onto the beach I said to Lucy that we should get the others to swim ... read more
Anuradhapura, Sri Lanka
Published: October 18th 2010Asia » Sri Lanka » North Central Province » Anuradhapura
April 3rd 2010
Sri Lankaaaaaa! Sri Lanka started off very well! We got upgraded to business class on the the flight down! We stayed in a hotel in central Colombo for the first two nights. Sri Lankan cuisine is similar to Indian, but the give a lot more food, about 5 separate dishes to eat in the main course! The Sri Lankan people are very friendly, always wanted to say hello. But they don't seem to understand what emigration is. When we said that we were from England, they kept on saying that you look Indian though! There is a heavy militray presence in Sri Lanka, quite unsettling at first as there are a lot of road blockades, but they are friendly enough. Colombo's nightlife is very odd - all the bars around town are brothels.....! So we ended ... read more
Poson trip Day 6 - Post-"Santa Claus-ing" sightseeing
Published: July 21st 2009Asia » Sri Lanka » North Central Province » Anuradhapura
June 8th 2009
After 2 days of intensive giving/donating/offering, today we could afford to wake up a bit later and have a relaxed breakfast. Since we spent most of the past 2 days doing charity work and didn't manage to have much sightseeing, today our Bhante decided to bring us around Anuradhapura and Mihintale for some cultural sightseeing. We first went to the Sri Maha Bodhi (Sacred Bodhi Tree) temple, in the middle of the Anuradhapura's ancient site. The sacred tree was grown from a cutting taken from the original bodhi tree in Bodhgaya, India, where Buddha attained enlightenment. The cutting was brought to Sri Lanka by Princess Sangamitta (sister of Prince Mahinda, who introduced Buddhism to Sri Lanka) in 3rd century BC. Not long after, the original bodhi tree in India was destroyed, but the "descendant" in Sri ... read more
There’s Natural Beauty and then there’s Man Made Beauty, but sometimes you get both at the same time. Part 2
Published: January 5th 2009Asia » Sri Lanka » North Central Province » Anuradhapura
December 11th 2008
Sorry for the delay in my blogs, its now 3rd January 2009 and still blogging about Sri Lanka in December 2008. This is the last chapter from Sri Lanka before I arrived in Thailand. Mihintale The morning sun was in full swing and as l started to climb the first set of steps my T-Shirt being to show the signs of the heat and became wet. Once at the top you come across a statue of King Devanampiya and just behind him was a giant rock with steps craved into them, so l started to climb them, and climb until l reached the huge white Buddha. The view from here over the grounds on Mihintale was amazing. Once back down again there was the central Dagoba that was the first one built here. Next to the ... read more
April 6th 2007
Saw a lot of Tempels. Beautiful colours. Our driver Asela showed us everything.... read more
More of The Cultural Triangle
Published: February 12th 2007Asia » Sri Lanka » North Central Province » Anuradhapura
February 10th 2007
Happy Birthday Autumn xxxxx So at 6am this morning we set off North to Minhitale, yes more ruins and temples. It was a fair old journey and at 9.30am we stopped for breakfast at this nice little hotel I had been to before, they all recognised me and said 'Hello" which was nice, but anyway there is a point to this I promise!!!! I hadn't been feeling too well during the week, nothing major just a bit of a poorly tummy, so I'm sitting there eating breakfast and think 'need to go to the toilet pretty sharpish, so off I goes. Welln I flushed the toilet and just as I was going to put the lid down I noticed something moving in the bowl, well you can imagine I was mortified, I thought I had passed ... read more
November 19th 2006
Marie and I are now half way through our travel time! We have been to Kandy, the Pinnawela elephant orphanage, Dambulla (rock temples), Sigiria, Polonnaruwa and now we are in Annuradhapura! Yesterday we discovered that you could get female Buddhist nuns. Up until that point we thought that they were all male as the male and female monks all where a orange tunic and have a shaved head with no jewelry you can see that this was an easy mistake to make! We then went to a female only temple and got blessed by one of the nuns who then asked us in her pigeon English whether we were married, had kids, etc the usual questions and we obviously passed the test as then she said "you now become monk?!" and we had to try and ... read more
