Blogs from North Central Province, Sri Lanka, Asia - page 2

Glyn and I caused quite a stir with the many stray dogs of Sigiriya this morning. It was 5.30am and they weren't expecting tourists to go walking down the road, so every single dog either barked or howled. The residents of Sigiriya must have loved us. The manager of our lodge was perturbed, the Rock wasn't open yet. We explained that we were off to photograph the sunrise; she looked bemused and just warned us to be careful of wild elephants. 'What?!' I said to Glyn, 'that would be awesomeness!'. No. It would be extremely dangerous, I was told. We walked to within view of Sigiriya Rock and waited for the most unimpressive sunrise ever. And to cap it off, no wild elephants, well, not yet... Thuminda arrived at our lodge just after 6.45 to take ... read more

Today I learned that there's an elephant in Yala that chases your car if you don't feed it. I wish we were going to Yala; I've been chased by a rhino and hippo before, plus many cows and an angry goat. But never an elephant! But anyway, it was time to leave Wilpattu and we had to finally face sorting the bill with Bandara who brought with him a calculator. He prices thing in dollars despite wanting payment in Sri Lankan Rupees and us being English. So after working out exchange rates, we discovered we didn't have enough rupees because the price had mysteriously increased since we booked and we only changed a small amount of cash at the airport because the rate was bad. We ended up giving him English money which he said was ... read more

Donna's lost her voice, good because she can't chastise Chris and I for misdemeanours, bad because we no longer have the benefit of her wisdom as part of the decision making. With an effort she can whisper which effectively means her and I are totally incommunicado as whispers don't work with my hearing. Granola with buffalo curd for breakfast and can totally recommend buffalo curd, smooth, not overly sour and must be good for you?? Off to the train station and onto the train all of which went well. Seats in second class which was not full despite the third class wagon being full to the point of overflow. Train was great, doors open and you can lean out to take photos, obviously being careful to not be hit by a train going the other way ... read more

The guy that brought us on a tuk tuk yesterday was waiting for us just outside the hotel and decided all by himself that he was going to be our guide to the ancient city so we were like: "Oh, well ok." but that was that. We started by going to a medium sized buddhist temple and I didn't expect it to be exactly white but in the end I concluded that it was quite pretty but boring when you see them all the time and UNFORTUNATELY I did see them a billion times and I had to walk all around them in a dry weather at 45 degrees! A very interesting thing that my dad told me about about this holiday highlight was that during the dark ages in the far east it wasn't the ... read more

Pour ce blog, j’ai regroupé les photos des 3 sites historiques majeurs du nord du Sri Lanka. C’est ce que les spécialistes appellent le Triangle Culturel ; trois destinations envoûtantes et primordiales si l’on veut mieux connaitre et comprendre le Sri Lanka. Dans l’ordre, le plus petit site de Mihintale est un endroit saint fréquenté par de très nombreux pèlerins car c’est ici, au IIIe siècle avant J.C., que le roi Dewanampiya Tissa se convertit au bouddhisme après avoir rencontré Mahinda, le disciple de Bouddha venu d’inde pour répandre la doctrine pacifiste de son maitre. C’est en mémoire de cette rencontre que le premier stupa du Sri Lanka fut construit sur le merveilleux site rocheux de Mihintale. Le grand stupa domine la jungle des collines environnantes ainsi qu’une petite cité monastique (beaucoup d’anciens temples millénaires en ... read more