Dambulla Cave Complex
Saturday, December 27. Kandy to Wild Grasses Hotel. Dambulla
After a good breakfast we were picked up by DJ before 9 am and spent about 90 minutes travelling to a spice garden. The spice garden was not over exciting and the person who showed us around had obviously shown far too many people around and gabbled and was largely unintelligible. There was a shop that sold the 32 products that they produced from their spices to cure all kinds of illnesses, and the man claimed that 65% of Sri Lankan used these cures rather than traditional big Pharma drugs.
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| A visit to a motheaten Herb Farm |
Travelling on, we stopped at Dabulla Temple and caves. We had to climb 400 odd steps to reach the caves that contained the Buddha statues. These were well worth the climb as the Buddhas carved in the five caves were truly impressive. It is a World Heritage site. Coming down the stairs was almost more difficult than going up them.
Dambulla Cave Temples
A World Heritage site. Dambulla is the largest and best-preserved cave temple complex in Sri Lanka. The rock towers 160 m over the surrounding plains. There are more than eighty documented caves in the surrounding area. Major attractions are spread over five caves, which contain statues and paintings. These paintings and statues are related to Gautama Buddha and his life. There are a total of 153 Buddha statues, three statues of Sri Lankan kings and four statues of gods and goddesses. The latter include Vishnu and the Ganesha. The murals cover an area of 2,100 square metres. Depictions on the walls of the caves include the temptation by the demon Mara, and Buddha's first sermon.
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Then it was just a half hour drive to Wild Grasses Hotel which was truly at the end of a road. We were driven in a clapped out golf buggy to our villa, Nightjar, which was a large duplex building with the bedroom upstairs and everything else downstairs, not exactly ideal for golden oldies, especially as the stairs had no banister. We settled in and then went to the swimming pool which was five minutes walk away, but not as far as we thought it was. I had just got changed and got into the pool when the heavens opened so I got out within a length and sheltered under the changing room building for awhile and eventually managed to get onto the sun umbrella. David was sitting under. Within 20 minutes, the rain stopped and I then had a pleasant swim and got changed again there to walk back to our villa.
Wild Grasses Hotel
Not our favourite hotel. I felt that there was nothing actually wrong with it, but nothing right with it either
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Here I made some tea and we had some snacks with it for a late lunch. After this a 30 minute siesta before going out for a walk up to reception and then around the houses near reception. Then we had one of our free bottles of whiskey which hardly contained any whiskey at all, but it was so very enjoyable with some peanut butterflies. This was after we had both used the outside shower as there was not one in the bathroom itself. At 7:30, we were picked up by the golf buggy again and taken up to reception and a dinner which we had had to order on our arrival. We indulged in the cocktail of the day and both enjoyed our dinner, a shared "chefs salad" followed by King Fish for me and prawns for David, both well cooked. And we followed this an excellent Buffalo Curd with Treacle. We asked for some fly spray for the room, but what we got was two men with seemingly a spray and dustpan and brushes who just wanted to tackle where there were a lot of midges, so we will see how we survive the night.
Sunday December 28. Wild Grasses Hotel. Second Kingdon Site & Elephant Safari
A trip to the second kingdom in the morning and a so called elephant Safari in the afternoon. We were picked up by DJ after a somewhat rushed breakfast. Our service was so slow and then it was a five minute walk or more back to the room, and 5 more back again. At 9 am we drove to the granite rock called Sigiriya, where it was possible to climb 1200 steps to get to the flat top platform. But Chris decided that this number of steps was not for her, so we just stopped and took photos of it
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We then drove on to the ruins of the second kingdom at Polonnaruwa:, which became the capital after Anuradhapura's fall in 993 AD, and was strategically chosen for defence and resources. Most of these ruins were from near the end of the 12th century, We saw various monasteries there and various Buddha statues.
Second Kingdom Site
Sri Lanka's second ancient kingdom site is Polonnaruwa, which became the capital after Anuradhapura fell to Chola invaders around 993 AD, flourishing as a major city with grand palaces, temples, and reservoirs, especially under King Parakramabahu I in the 12th century, and is now a UNESCO World Heritage site featuring extensive ruins.
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Then we drove to the Eco Reserve where we were to have a jeep tour to see the elephants. We arrived there just on 2 pm and transferred effortlessly and efficiently into a jeep with just us, DJ and the driver. But then turned into the forest following a long line of jeeps. Our first stop was to look at three elephants surrounded by 12, or more, jeeps.How these jeeps could back themselves out of impossible positions, I have no idea. Then onwards to a group of 5 elephants surrounded by 25 jeeps. One of the posse of jeeps viewing the elephants got stuck in the mud and had to be winched out. During our travels in the park, we saw a peacock and a crested Eagle, but nothing else. We felt that the Sri Lankan government should limit the number of jeeps that have permits to go into this area relatively sparsely populated by elephants.
An Elephant Safari
Without doubt the worst "safari" that I have ever been on. A sum total of two small groups of elephants, each surrounded by around 25 jeeps. The only other animals in the entire safari were a peacock (which you can see anywhere in Sri Lanka, and do not need to go into a National Park to see one) and a solitary eagle. It was really a jeep safari , rather than an elephant safari, there being a lot more jeeps than elephants,
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Back at the hotel we had a cup of tea and a snack before I went for a swim. Before this we had asked for the path to the lake, but this was not available to us without a guide and we gave up on it even though we got a bit nearer the lake than we had from our own chalet. We walked through the forest to the main building for dinner around 7:15 pm, waited sometime before anybody took our order for a cocktail, but then had a very pleasant meal.