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Published: July 19th 2015
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Today started back in the van for what we hoped was not a long journey, and we were lucky it was only 1 hour. We headed to Polonnaruwa, a village of Buddhist ruins from the 1100-1300 AD period. They consisted of a number of Stupas (round big buildings you can't enter that Buddhist pray around), the image houses that had statues and images of Buddha and a third thing we can't remember. It was hot and humid but nothing compared to Vietnam as there was a breeze to cool it a bit. The ruins were nice and some well restored, but you had to take off your shoes and hat at every one and walk around in your socks or bare feet. After about the 7th one we got a bit tired of this and were ready to go to lunch. Fortunately there were only 8 of them. The last was 4 statues of Buddha in different positions. We did a couple drive-bys of the Hindu temples in the complex as our guide did not seem as interested in them.
We headed to lunch at a local place near the temples that had a traditional Sri Lanka food buffet. It
seemed all home made, but our drive said they cut back on the hot spices for the westerners. We tried the traditional Sri Lankan desserts and decided they should stick with cooking curry. Not good.
Back in the car we headed out for about 30 min and drove to the national park for a jeep safari. Our expectations were low for this Safari since we all spent 4 weeks in southern Africa. We started off crossing a bridge with what we all think was a plastic crocodile. But after about 20 min of getting beat up in the jeep looking at trees, we came around the corner to the lake and saw tons of elephants. They were all at the watering hole. the highlight first was seeing a 3 week old baby elephant, then we turned around and saw an even cuter one that was 1-2 weeks old and stayed under the larger elephants legs. He tumbled around trying to get up. We stayed there a good 30 min laughing. There was also water buffalo, some cool birds, eagles and cranes. When we were watching the baby elephant there were probably 4-5 other jeeps in the area. After we
circled the lake and saw a few more herds we headed back. By then there were at least 30-40 jeeps looking at the elephants, line up 2 deep. And we continued to pass jeeps all the way out, including about 20-30 waiting to see the plastic crocodile. We are glad we got there early. Apparently the elephants only going to the watering hole for a certain period of time and we hit it prime time.
We were only about 20 min from our hotel so we rinsed off, but on our dresses and headed to the bar until it was time for our massages. They served alcohol today so we confused the waiter by ordering 4 drinks for 3 people because we wanted to try the resort signature drink. He reconfirmed this 3 times. We also saw elephants in the distance while sipping our drinks, writing our blog, waiting for food and a massage. As well as watching the pool attendant shoot at the monkey with a sling shot to keep them away. We think he can hit one form 30 yards away. So at this point in our trip, we love Sri Lanka.
We have an early
morning tomorrow to see one of the 7 wonders.
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