(6) A Jeopardy Bonus

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Thursday, July 22nd

Far more impressive than Ajanta in India, were the caves of Dambulla which are filled with paintings and sculptures over 2000 years old. One of the bizarre aspects were the multi-cultural faces painted on the frescos. How did those people know what Africans and Hawaiians looked like? Were there travelers even then?

How did the monks get their saffron colored robes?
The legend says that the monks were in the jungle and they needed robes to wear as a uniform when they approached the villagers. At that time they didn’t cremate bodies they just wrapped them in a white cloth and left them in the jungle. So the monks, not having cloth and needing it, stole the white wraps and headed to the villages. Before arriving they noticed they were breaking out in rashes due to the unclean cloths. So they boiled it in saffron which kills disease and have been wearing saffron colored robes since.

We arrived in Kandy in the afternoon and were excited to be in a city once again. Little did we know that our hotel was a ten minute drive up a long winding mountain. Kandy is the second largest city…and that’s about all we can say to its credit. Sri Lanka has many beautiful places but its cities are not among them. We did walk around the lake and go see the famous Kandy dancers and fire walkers. We have to say though, the fire twirling we did on the beaches of Thailand last year made this seem less impressive - but still a wonder to watch.

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