Journey to Anuradhapura

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Took a bus to Kurunegala, it was a three to four hour journey on a medium sized rickety old government bus which I guess could be 25 years old. It stopped allot and had 30 seats all occupied. Some seats with two occupants when you include mother and child. For parts of the journey there was up to 70 people standing in the isle. The journey was a little uncomfortable, but I insist on travelling the way the locals do.

The difference between English urban sprawl and Sri Lankan is more colour, noise, dirt than you can imagine – each small house has a unique touch, some homes double up as a grocery store, or hardware and various unimaginable combinations and it continued for mile after mile along the heavily congested road out of Negombo.

Later on in the journey the landscape become more undulating and forested with short patches of paddy fields, clearings and farmsteads. I arrived at Kurunegala which is overlooked by a giant Buddha standing on a hump shaped hill top and I waited for just a few minutes before changing to a private express bus with curtains over the dimmed windows which stopped less frequently and was less crowded.

The country side is less sparsely populated and there is the occasional large lake and river. The countryside is a mixture of tropical forest punctuated with the odd small farmstead, some towns and large bulbous granite mounds appearing over the top of the palm trees. The largest of these rock formations being Syguria.

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