On the morning of the 12th I took a tuktuk from Arugam Bay in time to leave on the 10 o'clock bus headed north along the coast to Batticaloa, 60 miles and more than three hours away. The bus was jammed full at first, though I had a window seat. We passed through conuntryside with dry, yellowing grass and at least a couple of army camps. The east coast of Sri Lanka, along with the far north, was heavily contested during the 1983-2009 civil war, with the government only gaining complete control in the east in 2007. Pottuvil is said to be the diving line between majority Sinhalese areas to the south and majority Tamil and Muslim areas north along the east coast. Lots of people, men and women, were in Islamic dress. (My stay in Arugam Bay had included the incongruous sight of bikini clad foreigners walking along the main road with crowds of school girls completely covered in white, with white head coverings.
There were only a few ocean views as the bus headed north, usually over sandy coastline. Further north the terrain to the west became greener, with acres of bright green rice paddies. Far to the west I could see the outline of the hills. Lots of ponds and lagoons stand along the road and there are a surprising number of busy, congested towns on the way.
The small town of Batticaloa is situated along the various shores of a big, serpentine lagoon, which the bus crossed twice before reaching the bus station. I found a hotel, had lunch, and then walked to the old fort on the shores of the lagoon. It now houses government offices, but is open to the public and I spent an hour or so looking around, walking along the walls, with good views of the lagoon, and along the creaky wooden floor of the second story of the veranda of the old two story Dutch era building inside. This lovely old building has very high ceilings, doors, and wooden shutters. The two story veranda has very thick white Doric columns. This day was a full moon day, Poson Poya, and thus a government holiday, so the offices were shut. On the walls sits an old British cannon, marked "GR," so 1830 or before. Two older cannons, much more worn, stand at the entrance to the fort.
From the fort I walked to the old part of town to see a few churches and a century old Catholic school building. Two of the churches were blaring out scratchy amplified music, proving that Christian churches can be just as annoying as mosques and Buddhist temples, though at least it was music, of a sort, rather than prayers. Almost every evening about sunset in Sri Lanka you are subjected to the amplified wailing of Buddhist prayers from temples.
The afternoon was hot and eventually I made my way to a spot where I had a good view of the fort across the lagoon and sat there until past sunset. I was joined by two other tourists who had been working as physical therapy volunteers at an orphanage east of Kandy for four months. After dark and before going to dinner, we walked to the local Buddhist temple, where large illuminated displays constructed for Poson Poya were on display. A newspaper photographer for the Daily News, a rabidly nationalistic, pro-government newspaper, asked if he could take photos of us gazing at one of the displays for the newspaper.
The next morning about 9:30 I left on a bus bound for Polunnaruwa, a 60 mile journey inland that took almost three hours. The sky was cloudy and the wind was blowing quite a bit, creating whitecaps on the large lagoon as we headed along it out of town headed north, or rather northwest, along the coast. The first part of the journey along the coast, though we never saw the ocean, was very slow, with lots of stops for people getting on and off. When the bus finally headed west into the interior it was just the opposite, almost deserted. At first the terrain was very dry, with yellowing grass and only low trees and bushes. The road followed the railroad, with a few small stations along the way and views of the faraway hills to the southwest. Further in, the landscape became much greener, with higher trees and thicker forest.
In Polonnaruwa I found a hotel and had lunch before looking around. Polonnaruwa was a medieval capital of Sri Lanka, with the 12th century the height of its glory. There are extensive ruins but foreigners have to pay about $25 to visit them, so I decided to put that off to the next day and see some of the ruins that you don't have to pay to see. About 3 I walked to the edge of the large (something like ten square miles) tank, or reservoir, on the edge of town, with a wonderfully cool wind blowing off the lake on a cloudy day. The tank was built by the city's greatest king, but was breached in the 13th century after the downfall of the city and only rebuilt in the 20th century. On the edge is a rest house where Queen Elizabeth stayed in 1954 and nearby are some interesting ruins right along the tank, including what appear to be royal baths, fed by water from the tank, a small summer palace on a very small island just offshore, the foundations of a larger building, an audience hall or palace, and the much better preserved remains of a former council chamber dating from the time of Polonnaruwa's last great ruler, Nissankamalla, who ruled from 1187 to 1196. Its wooden roof is gone, but stone columns atop a high base remain. At one end is the king's lion throne, in the shape of a standing lion. He sat on its back. The stone columns are inscribed in medieval Sinhalese prescribing which court officials sat where.
The ruins were filled with local people that afternoon, most heading to the road that passes the main section of the ruins. An annual perahera, or religious procession, was scheduled for that evening, and people were already staking out choice spots along the route. At 4 in the afternoon there were already thousands of people sitting along the route, with dozens of vendors attending to them. I watched the scene for a while and then headed back through the ruins I had just walked through and back to the rest house on the tank. From there I walked south along the lake, with a very strong wind blowing, which felt wonderful. A few cormorants, egrets, and pond herons stood on the rocks along the shore, usually taking off at my approach into the strong winds. It was pleasant along the tank, but with a lot of traffic as bus and truck loads of local people were heading into town for the perahera. After about half an hour I reached some more ruins along the tank, including a quite realistic statue of a bearded, dhoti clad man about 12 feet high. He is holding something usually thought to be a palm leaf manuscript. Another theory is that it depicts Parakramabahu, Polonnaruwa's greatest king, holding the yoke of office. Another theory is that whoever it depicts is holding a slice of papaya. Nearby are brick monastic ruins, including four small dagobas and a central circular chamber thought to be a library.
I walked back the way I had come along the tank and back in town walked a ways along the perahera route, now even more jammed with people. I bought some rambutan and went to sit in the ruins near the cool lake, where I ate several of the rambutan as the sky became dark. I walked back to my hotel, where the street was now lined with people, all looking rather curiously at me as I walked by. I ate dinner at a little restaurant on the street, watching perahera marchers, plus a float and an elephant festooned with electrical lights, headed to the perahera's starting point at a temple in the ruins to the north.
After dinner I walked along the parade route a bit just to see all the spectators, thousands, in fact probably tens of thousands, of them. About 10 the first of the perahera marchers reach my hotel area, where I was standing. First came men and boys cracking big whips and others twirling hoops of fire. A few fireworks were set off in the street. These first marchers were followed by more very slowly marching groups, mostly of youngsters and young adults, all in elaborate costumes, mostly Kandyan style, but also some other styles. They would stop and dance along the way. There were lots of Kandyan drummers and some oboists, too. There were also lots of elephants. I would guess there were about 15 of them in total. All wore beautifully embroidered blankets over their backs and most had little lights attached to the coverings on their heads and trunks. I wonder how much those lights bother them. One of the first elephants lifted its tail and dropped watermelon size dollops of pachyderm poop right in the middle of the route. The dancers just behind did their best to dance around the pile. Soon a man with a shovel came along and quickly shoveled the poop towards the crowd sitting on the other side of the street. So some lucky onlookers got to watch the parade behind a big mound of elephant poop.
The perahera was very slow moving and I was getting tired as I watched. Soon after 11 a very big illuminated elephant with an illuminated shelter on its back came along. Under the shelter on the elephant's back sat a golden casket, no doubt holding a relic, though whether of bone, teeth, hair, or, my personal favorite, sweat, I don't know. More marching groups and elephants came along, including another big one with a shelter and relic casket on its back. Among the marchers came a few older men in elaborate Kandyan costumes and Buddhist monks in orange. Some people, often with sleepy children, were beginning to leave towards midnight, but most remained. Just after midnight I finally headed back to my hotel for a very welcome cold shower and then bed under a mosquito net. I could still hear the Kandyan drummers as I quickly fell asleep.
I had planned to get up early the next day to explore Polonnaruwa's ruins. The $25 entry fee is good for only one day and there is a lot to see. But after going to bed so late, I slept till after 8 and didn't get up until after 9. The day was sunny and I waited until 10:30 or so to have breakfast at a breezy restaurant near the lake. I spent most of the afternoon reading and at an internet cafe and then about 4 walked again to the ruins near the lake that I had visited the afternoon before. Unlike the day before, they were almost deserted and very quiet. After sunset I sat by the lake to enjoy both the wind off the lake and the rosy glow of the post sunset sky until dark. Bats flew over the lake and over me, heading to the north and northeast.
The next day I did spend exploring the ruins, renting a bike for the day and entering soon after they opened at 8. Anuradhapura, to the north, had been Sri Lanka capital for more than a millennium, but subject to many south Indian invasions. The great Chola King Rajaraja I destroyed it in 993 and moved the capital of his Hindu kingdom to Polonnaruwa. The Sinhalese King Vijayabahu recaptured the city in 1056 and made it his capital in preference to the destroyed Anuradhapura. It was also further south, and thus further away, from the invaders from the north. Most of the ruins date from the reign of Vijayabahu's grandson, Parakramabahu the Great, who reigned from 1153 to 1186. He conquered the entire island and even launched military expeditions to south India and Burma. And he began a gargantuan series of public works, creating and restoring tanks and making Polonnaruwa into a great city. Oddly, he was succeeded by his Tamil son-in-law, Nissankamalla (1087-1096) who continued building and launched a military expedition into south India against the Pandyans of Madurai. Following his death the city and kingdom rapidly declined, with internal strife and more Indian invasions, and for one period of 40 years in the 13th century was ruled by a brutal Tamil mercenary who neglected the upkeep of the tanks, upon which northern Sri Lanka's agriculture rely. The city was abandoned in 1293, swallowed up by jungle, and pretty much forgotten until modern times.
I biked first to the Citadel, on the southern end but the heart of the ancient city. Inside the restored walls are the remains of of a palace, council chamber, and baths. Most impressive are the two and a half story brick remains of Parakramabahu's palace, said to have been seven stories high (the top stories were of wood) with a thousand rooms, though the number of rooms is an exaggeration. The council chamber is on a plinth to the east with columns and friezes of lions, dwarfs, and elephants. The morning was sunny and the place was already filling up with busloads of locals on a Sunday.
A big troop of langurs watched as I bicycled north from the citadel, passing a small Hindu temple dating from the Pandyan occupation of the early 13th century, to the Quadrangle, the most extensive collection of ruins.
This rectangular walled enclosure, raised above the surrounding area, was the religious heart of the city, where the tooth relic was kept. The most impressive building is a circular, columned relic house, with stairways decorated with dwarfs, lions, and the mythical makaras. Moonstones, carved semi-circular stones, stand at the base of the four entries and are decorated with geese, elephants, and horses, to be stepped on as you enter. Some, though not here, also depict lions and bulls, but in later times the bulls were removed in order not to upset Hindus, as were the lions, as a symbol of royalty. There are several other interesting ruins in the Quadrangle, and I spent most of the morning there looking around, leaving at noon. One 30 foot long slab of granite, weighing 25 tons and transported from 60 miles away, has its top covered with an inscription extolling the glories of Nisankamalla. A nearby sign translates part of it, including a reference to his invasion of south India and how the kingdoms there bought him off by offering him gold, gifts, and maidens. The Quadrangle was very crowded at first, but thinned out as the morning wore on as busloads of tourists came and went.
I biked back to town for a quick lunch and then spent a little less than an hour in the museum before returning to the ruins about 1:30. I biked further north from the Quadrangle, first stopping to see a small Hindu temple, the earliest of Polonnaruwa's ruins, built by Rajaraja I. Further north are the ruins of the monastic quarter of the city, with dagobas (stupas), temples, and other buildings. There are lots of trees among the ruins so it was easy to find shade. One dagoba is 170 feet high, the fourth largest in Sri Lanka. (The three largest are all in Anuradhapura.) Further north is a building with towering brick walls housing a now headless giant standing Buddha. Just north of it is a dagoba now painted bright white, with a huge orange ribbon tied around it. Just to the south is a monastic hall with four remarkable moonstones. As I left to head further north, I watched two macaques, one grooming the other. They did not seem at all upset by my presence and let me get to within a foot or two of them. The monkeys here live in part off the garbage left behind by tourists and are well used to them.
My next stop, at about 4:30 as I slowly made my way north, was the spectacular Gal Vihara, a massive granite outcrop with four Buddhas carved out of it. It was thronged with Sri Lankan tourists. The first two Buddhas on the left are sitting, the smaller of the two behind a wire mesh and a very scratched plexiglass window that makes viewing difficult. The finest two are on the right, a sorrowful looking standing Buddha and a reclining Buddha almost 50 feet long. All four, but especially the last two, are beautifully sculpted, with thin veins of black rock streaking the predominantly white rock. The standing, sorrowful Buddha, was once thought to be Buddha's disciple Ananda, standing beside his master as he attains Nirvana. Sockets in the rock wall reveal they all used to be in separate enclosures. Now a metal roof hovers over them.
After spending about half an hour at Gal Vihara (you can climb up a rock facing the statues), I was running out of time. It was now after 5. I pedaled further north a mile or so on a dirt road to the Tivanka Image House, with another headless giant Buddha inside, along with some dim, but very interesting murals. This is the northernmost of the ruins, perhaps two and a half miles from the Citadel. I biked back to Gal Vihara, stopping on the way to see a stone bathing pond, with five concentric rings in the shape of a lotus, and the brick remains of a dagoba that would have been the world's largest but was never finished, built by Tamil prisoners and now only partially excavated and covered with dirt, bushes, and trees.
I made my way back to the Gal Vihara just after 6 and it was now much less crowded. I spent another half hour there and then biked back, stopping at the lake near my hotel just at dark. Bats again flew overhead as I enjoyed the beauty of the sky and the brisk wind.
There were only a few ocean views as the bus headed north, usually over sandy coastline. Further north the terrain to the west became greener, with acres of bright green rice paddies. Far to the west I could see the outline of the hills. Lots of ponds and lagoons stand along the road and there are a surprising number of busy, congested towns on the way.
The small town of Batticaloa is situated along the various shores of a big, serpentine lagoon, which the bus crossed twice before reaching the bus station. I found a hotel, had lunch, and then walked to the old fort on the shores of the lagoon. It now houses government offices, but is open to the public and I spent an hour or so looking around, walking along the walls, with good views of the lagoon, and along the creaky wooden floor of the second story of the veranda of the old two story Dutch era building inside. This lovely old building has very high ceilings, doors, and wooden shutters. The two story veranda has very thick white Doric columns. This day was a full moon day, Poson Poya, and thus a government holiday, so the offices were shut. On the walls sits an old British cannon, marked "GR," so 1830 or before. Two older cannons, much more worn, stand at the entrance to the fort.
From the fort I walked to the old part of town to see a few churches and a century old Catholic school building. Two of the churches were blaring out scratchy amplified music, proving that Christian churches can be just as annoying as mosques and Buddhist temples, though at least it was music, of a sort, rather than prayers. Almost every evening about sunset in Sri Lanka you are subjected to the amplified wailing of Buddhist prayers from temples.
The afternoon was hot and eventually I made my way to a spot where I had a good view of the fort across the lagoon and sat there until past sunset. I was joined by two other tourists who had been working as physical therapy volunteers at an orphanage east of Kandy for four months. After dark and before going to dinner, we walked to the local Buddhist temple, where large illuminated displays constructed for Poson Poya were on display. A newspaper photographer for the Daily News, a rabidly nationalistic, pro-government newspaper, asked if he could take photos of us gazing at one of the displays for the newspaper.
The next morning about 9:30 I left on a bus bound for Polunnaruwa, a 60 mile journey inland that took almost three hours. The sky was cloudy and the wind was blowing quite a bit, creating whitecaps on the large lagoon as we headed along it out of town headed north, or rather northwest, along the coast. The first part of the journey along the coast, though we never saw the ocean, was very slow, with lots of stops for people getting on and off. When the bus finally headed west into the interior it was just the opposite, almost deserted. At first the terrain was very dry, with yellowing grass and only low trees and bushes. The road followed the railroad, with a few small stations along the way and views of the faraway hills to the southwest. Further in, the landscape became much greener, with higher trees and thicker forest.
In Polonnaruwa I found a hotel and had lunch before looking around. Polonnaruwa was a medieval capital of Sri Lanka, with the 12th century the height of its glory. There are extensive ruins but foreigners have to pay about $25 to visit them, so I decided to put that off to the next day and see some of the ruins that you don't have to pay to see. About 3 I walked to the edge of the large (something like ten square miles) tank, or reservoir, on the edge of town, with a wonderfully cool wind blowing off the lake on a cloudy day. The tank was built by the city's greatest king, but was breached in the 13th century after the downfall of the city and only rebuilt in the 20th century. On the edge is a rest house where Queen Elizabeth stayed in 1954 and nearby are some interesting ruins right along the tank, including what appear to be royal baths, fed by water from the tank, a small summer palace on a very small island just offshore, the foundations of a larger building, an audience hall or palace, and the much better preserved remains of a former council chamber dating from the time of Polonnaruwa's last great ruler, Nissankamalla, who ruled from 1187 to 1196. Its wooden roof is gone, but stone columns atop a high base remain. At one end is the king's lion throne, in the shape of a standing lion. He sat on its back. The stone columns are inscribed in medieval Sinhalese prescribing which court officials sat where.
The ruins were filled with local people that afternoon, most heading to the road that passes the main section of the ruins. An annual perahera, or religious procession, was scheduled for that evening, and people were already staking out choice spots along the route. At 4 in the afternoon there were already thousands of people sitting along the route, with dozens of vendors attending to them. I watched the scene for a while and then headed back through the ruins I had just walked through and back to the rest house on the tank. From there I walked south along the lake, with a very strong wind blowing, which felt wonderful. A few cormorants, egrets, and pond herons stood on the rocks along the shore, usually taking off at my approach into the strong winds. It was pleasant along the tank, but with a lot of traffic as bus and truck loads of local people were heading into town for the perahera. After about half an hour I reached some more ruins along the tank, including a quite realistic statue of a bearded, dhoti clad man about 12 feet high. He is holding something usually thought to be a palm leaf manuscript. Another theory is that it depicts Parakramabahu, Polonnaruwa's greatest king, holding the yoke of office. Another theory is that whoever it depicts is holding a slice of papaya. Nearby are brick monastic ruins, including four small dagobas and a central circular chamber thought to be a library.
I walked back the way I had come along the tank and back in town walked a ways along the perahera route, now even more jammed with people. I bought some rambutan and went to sit in the ruins near the cool lake, where I ate several of the rambutan as the sky became dark. I walked back to my hotel, where the street was now lined with people, all looking rather curiously at me as I walked by. I ate dinner at a little restaurant on the street, watching perahera marchers, plus a float and an elephant festooned with electrical lights, headed to the perahera's starting point at a temple in the ruins to the north.
After dinner I walked along the parade route a bit just to see all the spectators, thousands, in fact probably tens of thousands, of them. About 10 the first of the perahera marchers reach my hotel area, where I was standing. First came men and boys cracking big whips and others twirling hoops of fire. A few fireworks were set off in the street. These first marchers were followed by more very slowly marching groups, mostly of youngsters and young adults, all in elaborate costumes, mostly Kandyan style, but also some other styles. They would stop and dance along the way. There were lots of Kandyan drummers and some oboists, too. There were also lots of elephants. I would guess there were about 15 of them in total. All wore beautifully embroidered blankets over their backs and most had little lights attached to the coverings on their heads and trunks. I wonder how much those lights bother them. One of the first elephants lifted its tail and dropped watermelon size dollops of pachyderm poop right in the middle of the route. The dancers just behind did their best to dance around the pile. Soon a man with a shovel came along and quickly shoveled the poop towards the crowd sitting on the other side of the street. So some lucky onlookers got to watch the parade behind a big mound of elephant poop.
The perahera was very slow moving and I was getting tired as I watched. Soon after 11 a very big illuminated elephant with an illuminated shelter on its back came along. Under the shelter on the elephant's back sat a golden casket, no doubt holding a relic, though whether of bone, teeth, hair, or, my personal favorite, sweat, I don't know. More marching groups and elephants came along, including another big one with a shelter and relic casket on its back. Among the marchers came a few older men in elaborate Kandyan costumes and Buddhist monks in orange. Some people, often with sleepy children, were beginning to leave towards midnight, but most remained. Just after midnight I finally headed back to my hotel for a very welcome cold shower and then bed under a mosquito net. I could still hear the Kandyan drummers as I quickly fell asleep.
I had planned to get up early the next day to explore Polonnaruwa's ruins. The $25 entry fee is good for only one day and there is a lot to see. But after going to bed so late, I slept till after 8 and didn't get up until after 9. The day was sunny and I waited until 10:30 or so to have breakfast at a breezy restaurant near the lake. I spent most of the afternoon reading and at an internet cafe and then about 4 walked again to the ruins near the lake that I had visited the afternoon before. Unlike the day before, they were almost deserted and very quiet. After sunset I sat by the lake to enjoy both the wind off the lake and the rosy glow of the post sunset sky until dark. Bats flew over the lake and over me, heading to the north and northeast.
The next day I did spend exploring the ruins, renting a bike for the day and entering soon after they opened at 8. Anuradhapura, to the north, had been Sri Lanka capital for more than a millennium, but subject to many south Indian invasions. The great Chola King Rajaraja I destroyed it in 993 and moved the capital of his Hindu kingdom to Polonnaruwa. The Sinhalese King Vijayabahu recaptured the city in 1056 and made it his capital in preference to the destroyed Anuradhapura. It was also further south, and thus further away, from the invaders from the north. Most of the ruins date from the reign of Vijayabahu's grandson, Parakramabahu the Great, who reigned from 1153 to 1186. He conquered the entire island and even launched military expeditions to south India and Burma. And he began a gargantuan series of public works, creating and restoring tanks and making Polonnaruwa into a great city. Oddly, he was succeeded by his Tamil son-in-law, Nissankamalla (1087-1096) who continued building and launched a military expedition into south India against the Pandyans of Madurai. Following his death the city and kingdom rapidly declined, with internal strife and more Indian invasions, and for one period of 40 years in the 13th century was ruled by a brutal Tamil mercenary who neglected the upkeep of the tanks, upon which northern Sri Lanka's agriculture rely. The city was abandoned in 1293, swallowed up by jungle, and pretty much forgotten until modern times.
I biked first to the Citadel, on the southern end but the heart of the ancient city. Inside the restored walls are the remains of of a palace, council chamber, and baths. Most impressive are the two and a half story brick remains of Parakramabahu's palace, said to have been seven stories high (the top stories were of wood) with a thousand rooms, though the number of rooms is an exaggeration. The council chamber is on a plinth to the east with columns and friezes of lions, dwarfs, and elephants. The morning was sunny and the place was already filling up with busloads of locals on a Sunday.
A big troop of langurs watched as I bicycled north from the citadel, passing a small Hindu temple dating from the Pandyan occupation of the early 13th century, to the Quadrangle, the most extensive collection of ruins.
This rectangular walled enclosure, raised above the surrounding area, was the religious heart of the city, where the tooth relic was kept. The most impressive building is a circular, columned relic house, with stairways decorated with dwarfs, lions, and the mythical makaras. Moonstones, carved semi-circular stones, stand at the base of the four entries and are decorated with geese, elephants, and horses, to be stepped on as you enter. Some, though not here, also depict lions and bulls, but in later times the bulls were removed in order not to upset Hindus, as were the lions, as a symbol of royalty. There are several other interesting ruins in the Quadrangle, and I spent most of the morning there looking around, leaving at noon. One 30 foot long slab of granite, weighing 25 tons and transported from 60 miles away, has its top covered with an inscription extolling the glories of Nisankamalla. A nearby sign translates part of it, including a reference to his invasion of south India and how the kingdoms there bought him off by offering him gold, gifts, and maidens. The Quadrangle was very crowded at first, but thinned out as the morning wore on as busloads of tourists came and went.
I biked back to town for a quick lunch and then spent a little less than an hour in the museum before returning to the ruins about 1:30. I biked further north from the Quadrangle, first stopping to see a small Hindu temple, the earliest of Polonnaruwa's ruins, built by Rajaraja I. Further north are the ruins of the monastic quarter of the city, with dagobas (stupas), temples, and other buildings. There are lots of trees among the ruins so it was easy to find shade. One dagoba is 170 feet high, the fourth largest in Sri Lanka. (The three largest are all in Anuradhapura.) Further north is a building with towering brick walls housing a now headless giant standing Buddha. Just north of it is a dagoba now painted bright white, with a huge orange ribbon tied around it. Just to the south is a monastic hall with four remarkable moonstones. As I left to head further north, I watched two macaques, one grooming the other. They did not seem at all upset by my presence and let me get to within a foot or two of them. The monkeys here live in part off the garbage left behind by tourists and are well used to them.
My next stop, at about 4:30 as I slowly made my way north, was the spectacular Gal Vihara, a massive granite outcrop with four Buddhas carved out of it. It was thronged with Sri Lankan tourists. The first two Buddhas on the left are sitting, the smaller of the two behind a wire mesh and a very scratched plexiglass window that makes viewing difficult. The finest two are on the right, a sorrowful looking standing Buddha and a reclining Buddha almost 50 feet long. All four, but especially the last two, are beautifully sculpted, with thin veins of black rock streaking the predominantly white rock. The standing, sorrowful Buddha, was once thought to be Buddha's disciple Ananda, standing beside his master as he attains Nirvana. Sockets in the rock wall reveal they all used to be in separate enclosures. Now a metal roof hovers over them.
After spending about half an hour at Gal Vihara (you can climb up a rock facing the statues), I was running out of time. It was now after 5. I pedaled further north a mile or so on a dirt road to the Tivanka Image House, with another headless giant Buddha inside, along with some dim, but very interesting murals. This is the northernmost of the ruins, perhaps two and a half miles from the Citadel. I biked back to Gal Vihara, stopping on the way to see a stone bathing pond, with five concentric rings in the shape of a lotus, and the brick remains of a dagoba that would have been the world's largest but was never finished, built by Tamil prisoners and now only partially excavated and covered with dirt, bushes, and trees.
I made my way back to the Gal Vihara just after 6 and it was now much less crowded. I spent another half hour there and then biked back, stopping at the lake near my hotel just at dark. Bats again flew overhead as I enjoyed the beauty of the sky and the brisk wind.
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