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Published: July 20th 2009
The first 3 days of our trip is pretty blissful, as it was purely sightseeing. On the 4th day, things started to get much more "interesting". This was the day when the REAL work began. (The actual aim of this trip was to make offerings to monks, pilgrims, students, war refugees, etc... It's just that my mum and I arrived earlier than the main group and did some sightseeing before the main group arrived.)
In the original schedule, the main group was supposed to arrive at Kandy this morning, to make offerings to monks in Kandy Tooth Relic Temple. However, the schedule had so many changes before the trip that we no longer know when exactly the main group would arrive. To be safe, we decided to wake up early, have a quick breakfast, and wait at the Tooth Relic Temple for the main group. We woke up at 6:30am and had our breakfast at 7am. After breakfast, we saw 2 big buses outside our hotel and we realised that the main group had already arrived, so we quickly went to the Tooth Relic Temple. A temple staff saw us and led us to the temple's dining hall. The main
group was already there, so we quietly joined the group and sat down. After a speech from our Bhante (Buddhist teacher), all of us stood up and started serving food to the temple's residence monks.
(Previously, "we" refer to my mum and me only. From this point onwards, "we" refer to all the group members in this Poson trip.)
After the ceremony, our Bhante led us around the temple complex, including a stop at the Raja Tusker Museum which Raja, Sri Lanka's only stuffed elephant, was displayed. We also witnessed the morning Puja (a ceremony that pay respect to the Buddha Tooth Relic.) By the way, this Temple of the Tooth is Sri Lanka's most important Buddhist shrine, as it houses the legendary Buddha's Tooth. (The chamber where the tooth is kept is actually out of bounds to the public.)
After the temple visit, we boarded the 2 buses and made our way to Anuradhapura, the ancient capital of Sri Lanka. On the way, we stopped at the Gimanhala Hotel in Dambulla for our lunch break. Upon arrival at Anuradhapura, we stopped at our hotel - Miridiya Lodge, where we put the luggage into our rooms and
had a short rest. Then we made our way to the Ruvanvalisaya dagoba in the middle of ancient Anuradhapura. There, we made another round of offerings, this time to a group of young monks. We offered orange robes, stationery, candy, biscuits, "Ang Pow" (red packets containing money - a Chinese tradition), etc. After the offering ceremony, we walked one round around the Ruvanvalisaya dagoba, before making our way back to our buses.
We then went to Mihintale, a holy site 12km east of Anudradhapura, for another round of offering. We arrived at Mihintale in time for the Lighting Ceremony of the Sacred Mountain, where we waited for the sky to turn dark and the pretty lights to be switched on. After several speeches by the VIPs, the offering ceremony began. This time, the recipients were a group of local children and students. We stood along the lighted staircase, armed with a huge supplies of white robes. The children then walked down the staircase and we gave them a piece of white robe each. (They can use the robe to make school uniforms, or Buddhist robes, or whatever they want.)
After the long night of giving and offering, we
went to our "base camp" (a tent set up at Mihintale's lower terrace to store our supplies) to have our dinner and take a rest. Later at night, we began the formidable task of moving all our food/drink supplies and donation stuffs into the base camp. That included hundreds of boxes of mineral water, dozens of 20kg rice packets, hundreds of boxes of biscuits, thousands of disposable meal packets/spoons/cups/straws, thousands of packets of white robes, etc.
Finally, at 12am, we made our way back to our hotel...
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